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By 

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DAVIS 


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Illustrated  By 

Frederic  Remington! 


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R.  H.  Russell 


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The   Death   of  Rodriguez 


CUBA 

IN  WAR  TIME 

by 

Richard  Harding  Davis 

Fellow  of  The  Roval  Geographical  Society  ; 
Author  of  "  Three  Gringos  in  Venezuela 
and  Central  America,"  "The  Princess 
Aline,"  "  Gallegher,"  "Van  Bibber,  and 
Others,"  "  Dr.  Jameson's  Raiders,"  etc.,  etc 

ILLUSTRATED  BY 

Frederic  Remington 


fl~R 


NEW  YORK  .  R.  H.  RUSSELL 

1898 


COPYRIGHT   1898 

BY 

ROBERT  HOWARD  RUSSELL 


Contents 

List  ot  Illustrations      -  7 

Author's  Note      -               •  9 

Cuba  in  War  Time     -  •                 i  j 

The  Fate  of  the  Pacihcos  41 

The  Death  of  Rodriguez  -                59 

Along  the  Trocha               -  •        JJ 

The  Question  of  Atrocities  -              103 

The  Right  ot  Search  of   American 

Vessels            -               -  121 


Illustrations 

The  Death  of  Rodriguez    .      Frontispiece 

A  Spanish  Soldier     .        .        .        .  15 

Guerrillas  with  Caotured  Pacincos  .     21 

L 

A  Spanish  Officer      ....  27 

Insurgents  Firing  on  Spanish  Fort  .     33 

Fire  and  Sword  in  Cuba          .        .  40 

A  Spanish  Guerrilla      .        .        .  ,     4^ 

Murdering  the  Cuban  Wounded     .  51 

Bringing  in  the  Wounded  58 

Young  Spanish  Officer     .        .        ,  63 

The  Cuban  Martyrdom  69 

Regular   Cavalryman — Spanish      .  76 

One  of  the  Block  Houses   .        .  81 

Spanish  Cavalry        „        .        .        „  85 

One  of  the  Forts  Along  the  Trocha  89 


The  Trocha      .  93 

Spanish  Troops  in  Action           .  .102 

Amateur  Surgery  in  Cuba       .  .         107 

Scouting   Party   of  Spanish    Cavalry     113 

An  Officer  of  Spanish  Guerrillas  .     120 

A  Spanish  Picket  Post     .        .  .         125 

General  Weyler  in  the  Field    .  =131 

Spanish  Cavalryman    on     a     Texas 

Broncho 137 

For  Cuba  Libre       .        .        .  •        141 

NOTE 

These  illustrations  were  made  by  Mr.  Frederic 
Remington,  from  personal  observation  while  in 
Cuba,  and  from  photographs,  and  descriptions 
furnished  by  eye-witnesses. 


Author's  Note 

A  FTER  my  return  from  Cuba  many  people 
asked  me  questions  concerning  the  situation 
there,  and  I  noticed  that  they  generally  asked  the 
same  questions.  This  book  has  been  published 
with  the  idea  of  answering-  those  questions  as  fully 
as  is  possible  for  me  to  do  after  a  journey 
through  the  island,  during  which  I  traveled  in  four 
of  the  six  provinces,  visiting  towns,  seaports,  plan- 
tations and  military  camps,  and  stopping  for  severa! 
days  in  all  of  the  chief  cities  of  Cuba,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  Santiago  and  Pinar  del  Rio. 

Part  of  this  book  was  published  originally  in  the 
form  of  letters  from  Cuba  to  the  New  York  Journal 
and  in  the  newspapers  of  a  syndicate  arranged  by 
the  Journal;  the  remainder,  which  was  suggested  by 
the  questions  asked  on  my  return,  was  written  in 
this  country,  and  appears  here  for  the  first  time. 

RICHARD  HARDING  DAVIS. 


Cuba  in  War  Time 

WHEN  the  revolution  broke  out  in  Cuba 
two  years  ago,  the  Spaniards  at  once 
began  to  build  tiny  forts,  and  con- 
tinued to  add  to  these  and  improve  those  already 
built,  until  now  the  whole  island,  which  is  eight 
hundred  miles  long  and  averages  eighty  miles  in 
width,  is  studded  as  thickly  with  these  little  forts 
as  is  the  sole  of  a  brogan  with  iron  nails.  It  is 
necessary  to  keep  the  fact  of  the  existence  of  these 
forts  in  mind  in  order  to  understand  the  situation 
in  Cuba  at  the  present  time,  as  they  illustrate  the 
Spanish  plan  of  campaign,  and  explain  why  the  war 
has  dragged  on  for  so  long,  and  why  it  may  con- 
tinue indefinitely. 

The  last  revolution  was  organized  by  the  aristo- 
crats; the  present  one  is  a  revolution  of  the  puebleo, 
and,  while  the  principal  Cuban  families  are  again 
among  the  leaders,  with  them  now  are  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  "plain  people,"  and  the  cause  is 
now  a  common  cause  in  working  for  the  success 
of  which  all  classes  of  Cubans  are  desperately  in 
earnest. 


12  Cuba  in  War  Time 

The  outbreak  of  this  revolution  was  hastened  by 
an  offer  from  Spain  to  make  certain  reforms  in  the 
internal  government  of  the  island.  The  old  revo- 
lutionary leaders,  fearing  that  the  promise  of  these 
reforms  might  satisfy  the  Cubans,  and  that  they 
would  cease  to  hope  for  complete  independence, 
started  the  revolt,  and  asked  all  loyal  Cubans  not  to 
accept  the  so-called  reforms  when,  by  fighting;  they 
might  obtain  their  freedom.  Another  cause  which 
precipitated  the  revolution  was  the  financial  depres- 
sion which  existed  all  over  the  island  in  1894,  and 
theclosingof  the  sugar  mills  in  consequence.  Owing 
to  the  lack  of  money  with  which  to  pay  the  labor- 
ers, the  grinding  of  the  sugar  cane  ceased,  and  the 
men  were  turned  off  by  the  hundreds,  and,  for  want 
of  something  better  to  do,  joined  the  insurgents. 
Some  planters  believe  that  had  Spain  loaned 
them  sufficient  money  with  which  to  continue 
grinding,  the  men  would  have  remained  on  the 
centrals,  as  the  machine  shops  and  residence  of  a 
sugar  plantation  are  called,  and  that  so  few  would 
have  gone  into  the  field  against  Spain  that  the  in- 
surrection could  have  been  put  down  before  it  had 
gained  headway.  An  advance  to  the  sugar  plan- 
ters of  five  millions  of  dollars  then,  so  they  say, 
would  have  saved  Spain  the  outlay  of  many  hun- 
dreds of  millions  spent  later  in  supporting  an  army 


Cuba  in   War  Time  1 3 

in  the  field.  That  may  or  may  not  be  true,  and  it 
is  not  important  now,  for  Spain  did  not  attack  the 
insurgents  in  that  way,  but  began  hastily  to  build 
forts.  These  forts  now  stretch  all  over  the  island, 
some  in  straight  lines,  some  in  circles,  and  some 
zig-zagging  from  hill-top  to  hill-top,  some  within 
a  quarter  of  a  mile  of  the  next,  and  others  so  near 
that  the  sentries  can  toss  a  cartridge  from  one  to 
the  other. 

The  island  is  divided  into  two  great  military 
camps,  one  situated  within  the  forts,  and  the  other 
scattered  over  the  fields  and  mountains  outside 
of  them.  The  Spaniards  have  absolute  control 
over  everything  within  the  fortified  places;  that  is, 
in  all  cities,  towns,  seaports,  and  along  the  lines  of 
the  railroad;  the  insurgents  are  in  possession  of  all 
the  rest.  They  are  not  in  fixed  possession,  but  they 
have  control  much  as  a  mad  bull  may  be  said  to 
have  control  of  a  ten-acre  lot  when  he  goes  on  the 
rampage.  Some  farmer  may  hold  a  legal  right  to 
the  ten-acre  lot,  through  title  deeds  or  in  the  shape 
of  a  mortgage,  and  the  bull  may  occupy  but  one 
part  of  it  at  a  time,  but  he  has  possession,  which  is 
better  than  the  law. 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  a  line  drawn  so  closely, 
not  about  one  city  or  town,  but  around  every  city 
and  town  in  Cuba,  that  no  one  can  pass  the  line 


14  Cuba  in  War  Time 

from  either  the  outside  or  the  inside.  The  Span- 
iards, however,  have  succeeded  in  effecting  and 
maintaining  a  blockade  of  that  kind.  They  have 
placed  forts  next  to  the  rows  of  houses  or  huts  on 
the  outskirts  of  each  town,  within  a  hundred  yards 
of  one  another,  and  outside  of  this  circle  is  another 
circle,  and  beyond  that,  on  every  high  piece  of 
ground,  are  still  more  of  these  little  square  forts, 
which  are  not  much  larger  than  the  signal  stations 
along  the  lines  of  our  railroads  and  not  unlike  them 
in  appearance.  No  one  can  cross  the  line  of  the 
forts  without  a  pass,  nor  enter  from  the  coun- 
try beyond  them  without  an  order  showing  from 
what  place  he  comes,  at  what  time  he  left  that  place, 
and  that  he  had  permission  from  the  commandante 
to  leave  it.  A  stranger  in  any  city  in  Cuba  to-day  is 
virtually  in  a  prison,  and  is  as  isolated  from  the  rest 
of  the  world  as  though  he  were  on  a  desert  island  or 
a  floating  ship  of  war.  When  he  wishes  to  depart  he 
is  free  to  do  so,  but  he  cannot  leave  on  foot  nor  on 
horseback.  He  must  make  his  departure  on  a 
railroad  train,  of  which  seldom  more  than  two 
leave  any  town  in  twenty-four  hours,  one  going 
east  and  the  other  west.  From  Havana  a  number 
of  trains  depart  daily  in  different  directions,  but 
once  outside  of  Havana,  there  is  only  one  train 
back  to  it  again.     When  on  the  cars  you  are  still  in 


A   Spanish   Soldier 


Cuba   in  War  Time  \j 

the  presence  and  under  the  care  of  Spanish  sol- 
diers, and  the  progress  of  the  train  is  closely 
guarded.  A  pilot  engine  precedes  it  at  a  distance 
of  one  hundred  yards  to  test  the  rails  and  pick  up 
dynamite  bombs,  and  in  front  of  it  is  a  car  covered 
with  armor  plate,  with  slits  in  the  sides  like  those 
in  a  letter  box,  through  which  the  soldiers  may  fire. 
There  are  generally  from  twenty  to  fifty  soldiers  in 
each  armored  car.  Back  of  the  armored  car  is  a  flat 
car  loaded  with  ties,  girders  and  rails,  which  are 
used  to  repair  bridges  or  those  portions  of  the  track 
that  may  have  been  blown  up  by  the  insurgents, 
Wherever  a  track  crosses  a  bridge  there  are  two 
forts,  one  at  each  end  of  the  bridge,  and  also  at  al- 
most every  cross-road.  When  the  train  passes  one 
of  these  forts,  two  soldiers  appear  in  the  door  and 
stand  at  salute  to  show,  probably,  that  they  are 
awake,  and  at  every  station  there  are  two  or 
more  forts,  while  the  stations  themselves  are  usually 
protected  by  ramparts  of  ties  and  steel  rails.  There 
is  no  situation  where  it  is  so  distinctly  evident  that 
those  who  are  not  with  you  are  against  you,  for  you 
are  either  inside  of  one  circle  of  forts  or  passing 
under  guard  by  rail  to  another  circle,  or  you  are  with 
the  insurgents.  There  is  no  alternative.  If  you  walk 
fifty  yards  away  from  the  circle  you  are,  in  the  eyes 
of  the  Spaniards,  as  much  in  "the  field"  as  though 


1 8  Cuba  in  War  Time 

you  were  two  hundred  miles  away  on  the  moun- 
tains. 

The  lines  are  so  closely  drawn  that  when  you 
consider  the  tremendous  amount  of  time  and  labor 
expended  in  keeping  up  this  blockade,  you  must 
admire  the  Spaniards  for  doing  it  so  well,  but  you 
would  admire  them  more,  if,  instead  of  stopping 
content  with  that  they  went  further  and  invaded  the 
field.  The  forts  are  an  excellent  precaution;  they 
prevent  sympathizers  from  joining  the  insurgents 
and  from  sending  them  food,  arms,  medicine  or 
messages.  But  the  next  step,  after  blockading  the 
cities,  would  appear  to  be  to  follow  the  insurgents 
into  the  field  and  give  them  battle.  This  the 
Spaniards  do  not  seem  to  consider  important,  nor 
wish  to  do.  Flying  columns  of  regular  troops  and 
guerrillas  are  sent  out  daily,  but  they  always  return 
each  evening  within  the  circle  of  forts.  If  they 
meet  a  band  of  insurgents  they  give  battle  readily 
enough,  but  they  never  pursue  the  enemy,  and,  in- 
stead of  camping  on  the  ground  and  following  him 
up  the  next  morning,  they  retreat  as  soon  as  the 
battle  is  over,  to  the  town  where  they  are  stationed. 
When  occasionally  objection  is  made  to  this  by  a 
superior  officer,  they  give  as  an  explanation  that 
they  were  afraid  of  being  led  into  an  ambush,  and 
that  as  an  officer's  first  consideration  must  be  for  his 


Cuba  in  War  Time  19 

men,  they  decided  that  it  was  wiser  not  to  follow 
the  enemy  into  what  might  prove  a  death-trap;  or 
the  officers  say  they  could  not  abandon  their 
wounded  while  they  pursued  the  rebels.  Some- 
times a  force  of  one  thousand  men  will  return  with 
three  men  wounded,  and  will  offer  their  condition 
as  an  excuse  for  having  failed  to  follow  the  enemy. 
About  five  years  ago  troops  of  United  States 
cavalry  were  sent  into  the  chapparal  on  the  border 
of  Mexico  and  Texas  to  drive  the  Garcia  revolution- 
ists back  into  their  own  country.  One  troop,  G, 
Third  Cavalry,  was  ordered  out  for  seven  days'  ser- 
vice, but  when  I  joined  the  troop  later  as  a  corre- 
spondent, it  had  been  in  the  field  for  three  months, 
sleeping  the  entire  time  under  canvas,  and  carry- 
ing all  its  impedimenta  with  it  on  pack  mules.  It  had 
seldom,  if  ever,  been  near  a  town,  and  the  men  wore 
the  same  clothes,  or  what  was  left  of  them,  with 
which  they  had  started  for  a  week's  campaign.  Had 
the  Spaniards  followed  such  a  plan  of  attack  as  that 
when  the  revolution  began,  instead  of  building 
mud  forts  and  devastating  the  country,  they  might 
not  only  have  suppressed  the  revolution,  but  the 
country  would  have  been  of  some  value  when  the 
war  ended.  As  it  is  to-day,  it  will  take  ten  years 
or  more  to  bring  it  back  to  a  condition  of  produc- 
tiveness. 


20  Cuba  in   War  Time 

The  wholesale  devastation  of  the  island  was 
an  idea  of  General  Weyler's.  If  the  captain  of 
a  vessel,  in  order  to  put  down  a  mutiny  on  board, 
scuttled  the  ship  and  sent  everybody  to  the  bot- 
tom, his  plan  of  action  would  be  as  successful  as 
General  Weyler's  has  proved  to  be.  After  he  had 
obtained  complete  control  of  the  cities  he  decided  to 
lay  waste  the  country  and  starve  the  revolutionists 
into  submission.  So  he  ordered  all  pacificos,  as  the 
non-belligerents  are  called,  into  the  towns  and 
burned  their  houses,  and  issued  orders  to  have  all 
fields  where  potatoes  or  corn  were  planted  dug  up 
and  these  food  products  destroyed. 

These  pacificos  are  now  gathered  inside  of  a  dead 
line,  drawn  one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  around  the 
towns,  or  wherever  there  is  a  fort.  Some  of  them 
have  settled  around  the  forts  that  guard  a  bridge, 
others  around  the  forts  that  guard  a  sugar  planta- 
tion; wherever  there  are  forts  there  are  pacificos. 

In  a  word,  the  situation  in  Cuba  is  something  like 
this:  The  Spaniards  hold  the  towns,  from  which 
their  troops  daily  make  predatory  raids,  invariably 
returning  in  time  for  dinner  at  night.  Around  each 
town  is  a  circle  of  pacificos  doing  no  work,  and  for 
the  most  part  starving  and  diseased,  and^outside, 
in  the  plains  and  mountains,  are  the  insurgents.  No 
one  knows  just  where  any  one  band  of  them  is  to- 


""'"r^vV\,N 


u 


Cuba   in   War  Time  23 

day,  or  where  it  may  be  to-morrow.  Sometimes 
they  come  up  to  the  very  walls  of  the  fort,  las~o  a 
bunch  of  cattle  and  ride  ofT  again,  and  the  next 
morning'  their  presence  may  be  detected  ten  miles 
away,  where  they  are  setting  fire  to  a  cane  field  or  a 
sugar  plantation. 

This  is  the  situation,  so  far  as  the  inhabi- 
tants are  concerned.  The  physical  appearance  of 
the  country  since  the  war  began  has  changed 
greatly.  In  the  days  of  peace  Cuba  was  one  of  the 
most  beautiful  islands  in  the  tropics,  perhaps  in  the 
world.  Its  skies  hang  low  and  are  brilliantly  beau- 
tiful, with  great  expanses  of  blue,  and  in  the  early 
morning  and  before  sunset,  they  are  lighted  with 
wonderful  clouds  of  pink  and  saffron,  as  brilliant  and 
as  unreal  as  the  fairy's  grotto  in  a  pantomime. 
There  are  great  wind-swept  prairies  of  high  grass 
or  tall  sugar  cane,  and  on  the  sea  coast  mountains 
of  a  light  green,  like  the  green  of  corroded  copper, 
changing  to  a  darker  shade  near  the  base,  where 
they  are  covered  with  forests  of  palms. 

Throughout  the  extent  of  the  island  run  many 
little  streams,  sometimes  between  high  banks  of 
rock,  covered  with  moss  and  magnificent  fern,  with 
great  pools  of  clear,  deep  water  at  the  base  of  high 
waterfalls,  and  in  those  places  where  the  stream 
cuts  its  way  through  the  level  plains  double  rows 


24  Cuba  in  War  Time 

of  the  royal  palm  mark  its  course.  The  royal  palm 
is  the  characteristic  feature  of  the  landscape  in 
Cuba.  It  is  the  most  beautiful  of  all  palms,  and 
possibly  the  most  beautiful  of  all  trees.  The  cocoa- 
nut  palm,  as  one  sees  it  in  Egypt,  picturesque  as  it 
is,  has  a  pathetic  resemblance  to  a  shabby  feather 
duster,  and  its  trunk  bends  and  twists  as  though  it 
had  not  the  strength  to  push  its  way  through  the 
air,  and  to  hold  itself  erect.  But  the  royal  palm 
shoots  up  boldly  from  the  earth  with  the  grace  and 
symmetry  of  a  marble  pillar  or  the  white  mast  of  a 
great  ship.  Its  trunk  swells  in  the  centre  and 
grows  smaller  again  at  the  top,  where  it  is  hidden 
by  great  bunches  of  green  plumes,  like  monstrous 
ostrich  feathers  that  wave  and  bow  and  bend  in  the 
breeze  as  do  the  plumes  on  the  head  of  a  beautiful 
woman.  Standing  isolated  in  an  open  plain  or  in 
ranks  in  a  forest  of  palms,  this  tree  is  always 
beautiful,  noble  and  full  of  meaning.  It  makes 
you  forget  the  ugly  iron  chimneys  of  the  centrals, 
and  it  is  the  first  and  the  last  feature  that  appeals  to 
the  visitor  in  Cuba. 

But  since  the  revolution  came  to  Cuba  the  beauty 
of  the  landscape  is  blotted  with  the  grim  and  pitia- 
ble signs  of  war.  The  sugar  cane  has  turned  to  a 
dirty  brown  where  the  fire  has  passed  through  it, 
the  centrals  are  black  ruins,  and  the  adobe  houses 


Cuba  in  War   Time  25 

and  the  railroad  stations  are  roofless,  and  their 
broken  windows  stare  pathetically  at  yon  like  blind 
eyes.  War  cannot  alter  the  sunshine,  but  the 
smoke  from  the  burning  huts  and  the  blazing  corn 
fields  seems  all  the  more  sad  and  terrible  when  it 
rises  into  such  an  atmosphere,  and  against  so  soft 
and  beautiful  a  sky. 

People  frequently  ask  how  far  the  destruction  of 
property  in  Cuba  is  apparent.  It  is  so  far  apparent 
that  the  smoke  of  burning  buildings  is  seldom  ab- 
sent from  the  landscape.  If  you  stand  on  an  elevation 
it  is  possible  to  see  from  ten  to  twenty  blazing 
houses,  and  the  smoke  from  the  cane  fields  creeping 
across  the  plain  or  rising  slowly  to  meet  the  sky. 
Sometimes  the  train  passes  for  hours  through  burn- 
ing districts,  and  the  heat  from  the  fields  along  the 
track  is  so  intense  that  it  is  impossible  to  keep 
the  windows  up,  and  whenever  the  door  is  opened 
sparks  and  cinders  sweep  into  the  car.  One  morn- 
ing, just  this  side  of  Jovellanos,  all  the  sugar  cane 
on  the  right  side  of  the  track  was  wrapped  in  white 
smoke  for  miles  so  that  nothing  could  be  distin- 
guished from  that  side  of  the  car,  and  we  seemed 
to  be  moving  through  the  white  steam  of  a  Russian 
bath. 

The  Spaniards  are  no  more  to  blame  for  this 
than  are  the  insurgents;  each  destroy  property  and 


26  Cuba  in  War  Time 

burn  the  cane.  When  an  insurgent  column  finds 
a  field  planted  with  potatoes,  it  takes  as  much  of 
the  crop  as  it  can  carry  away  and  chops  up  the  re- 
mainder with  machetes,  to  prevent  it  from  falling 
into  the  hands  of  the  Spaniards.  If  the  Spaniards 
pass  first,  they  act  in  exactly  the  same  way. 

Cane  is  not  completely  destroyed  if  it  is  burned, 
for  if  it  is  at  once  cut  down  just  above  the  roots,  it 
will  grow  again.  When  peace  is  declared  it  will 
not  be  the  soil  that  will  be  found  wanting,  nor  the 
sun.  It  will  be  the  lack  of  money  and  the  loss  of 
credit  that  will  keep  the  sugar  planters  from  sowing 
and  grinding.  And  the  loss  of  machinery  in  the 
centrals,  which  is  worth  in  single  instances  hun- 
dreds of  thousands  of  dollars,  and  in  the  aggre- 
gate many  millions,  cannot  be  replaced  by  men, 
who,  even  when  their  machinery  was  intact,  were 
on  the  brink  of  ruin. 

Unless  the  United  States  government  interferes 
on  account  of  some  one  of  its  citizens  in  Cuba,  and 
war  is  declared  with  Spain,  there  is  no  saying  how 
long  the  present  revolution  may  continue.  For  the 
Spaniards  themselves  are  acting  in  a  way  which 
makes  many  people  suspect  that  they  are  not  mak- 
ing an  effort  to  bring  it  to  an  end.  The  sincerity  of 
the  Spaniards  in  Spain  is  beyond  question;  the  per- 
sonal sacrifices  they  made  in  taking  up  the  loans 


A  Spanish  Officer 


Cuba  in  War  Time  29 

issued  by  the  government  are  proof  of  their  loyalty. 
But  the  Spaniards  in  Cuba  are  acting:  for  their  own 
interests.  Many  of  the  planters  in  order  to  save 
their  fields  and  centrals  from  destruction,  are  un- 
questionably aiding  the  insurgents  in  secret,  and 
though  they  shout  "Viva  Espafia"  in  the  cities,  they 
pay  out  cartridges  and  money  at  the  back  door  of 
their  plantations. 

It  was  because  YVeyler  suspected  that  they 
were  playing  this  double  game  that  he  issued 
secret  orders  that  there  should  be  no  more  grind- 
ing. For  he  knew  that  the  same  men  who  bribed 
him  to  allow  them  to  grind  would  also  pay  black- 
mail to  the  insurgents  for  a  like  permission.  He  did 
not  dare  openly  to  forbid  the  grinding,  but  he  in- 
structed his  officers  in  the  field  to  visit  those  places 
where  grinding  was  in  progress  and  to  stop  it  by 
some  indirect  means,  such  as  by  declaring  that  the 
laborers  employed  were  suspects,  or  by  seizing  all 
the  draught  oxen  ostensibly  for  the  use  of  his  army, 
or  by  insisting  that  the  men  employed  must  show 
a  fresh  permit  to  work  every  day.  which  could  only 
-sued  to  them  by  some  commandant e  stationed 
not  less  than  ten  miles  distant  from  the  plantation 
on  which  they  were  employed. 

And  the  Spanish  officers,  as  well  as  the  planters — 
the  very  men  to  whom  Spain  looks  to  end  the  rebel- 


30  Cuba  in  War  Time 

lion — are  chief  among  those  who  are  keeping  it 
alive.  The  reasons  for  their  doing  so  are  obvious; 
they  receive  double  pay  while  they  are  on  foreign 
service,  whether  they  are  fighting  or  not,  promo- 
tion comes  twice  as  quickly  as  in  time  of  peace,  and 
orders  and  crosses  are  distributed  by  the  gross. 
They  are  also  able  to  make  small  fortunes  out  of 
forced  loans  from  planters  and  suspects,  and  they 
undoubtedly  hold  back  for  themselves  a  great  part 
of  the  pay  of  the  men.  A  certain  class  of  Spanish 
officer  has  a  strange  sense  of  honor.  He  does 
not  consider  that  robbing  his  government  by  falsi- 
fying his  accounts,  or  by  making  incorrect  returns 
of  his  expenses,  is  disloyal  or  unpatriotic.  He  holds 
such  an  act  as  lightly  as  many  people  do  smuggling 
cigars  through  their  own  custom  house,  or  robbing  a 
corporation  of  a  railroad  fare.  He  might  be  per- 
fectly willing  to  die  for  his  country,  but  should  he 
be  permitted  to  live  he  will  not  hesitate  to  rob  her. 
A  lieutenant,  for  instance,  will  take  twenty  men 
out  for  their  daily  walk  through  the  surrounding 
country  and  after  burning  a  few  huts  and  butcher- 
ing a  pacifico  or  two,  will  come  back  in  time  for 
dinner  and  charge  his  captain  for  rations  for  fifty 
men  and  for  three  thousand  cartridges  "expended 
in  service."  The  captain  vises  his  report,  and  the 
two  share  the   profits.     Or  they  turn  the   money 


Cuba  in   War  Time  31 

over  to  the  colonel,  who  recommends  them  for  red 
enamelled  crosses  for  "bravery  on  the  field."  The 
only  store  in  Matanzas  that  was  doing-  a  brisk  trade 
when  I  was  there  was  a  jewelry  shop,  where  they 
had  sold  more  diamonds  and  watches  to  the  Span- 
ish officers  since  the  revolution  broke  out  than  they 
had  ever  been  able  to  dispose  of  before  to  all  the 
rich  men  in  the  city.  The  legitimate  pay  of  the 
highest  ranking  officer  is  barely  enough  to  buy  red 
wine  for  his  dinner,  certainly  not  enough  to  pay  for 
champagne  and  diamonds;  so  it  is  not  unfair  to  sup- 
pose that  the  rebellion  is  a  profitable  experience  for 
the  officers,  and  they  have  no  intention  of  losing 
the  golden  eggs. 

And  the  insurgents  on  the  other  side  are  equally 
determined  to  continue  the  conflict.  From  every 
point  of  view  this  is  all  that  is  left  for  them  to  do. 
They  know  by  terrible  experience  how  little  of 
mercy  or  even  of  justice  they  may  expect  from 
the  enemy,  and,  patriotism  or  the  love  of  indepen- 
dence aside,  it  is  better  for  them  to  die  in  the 
field  than  to  risk  the  other  alternative;  a  lin- 
gering life  in  an  African  penal  settlement  or  the 
fusillade  against  the  east  wall  of  Cabanas  prison.  In 
an  island  with  a  soil  so  rich  and  productive  as  is 
that  of  Cuba  there  will  always  be  roots  and  fruits 
for  the  insurgents  to  live  upon,  and  with  the  cattle 


32  Cuba  in  War  Time 

that  they  have  hidden  away  in  the  laurel  or  on  the 
mountains  they  can  keep  their  troops  in  rations  for 
an  indefinite  period.  What  they  most  need  now 
are  cartridges  and  rifles.  Of  men  they  have  al- 
ready more  than  they  can  arm. 

People  in  the  United  States  frequently  ex- 
press impatience  at  the  small  amount  of  fighting 
which  takes  place  in  this  struggle  for  liberty,  and  it 
is  true  that  the  lists  of  killed  show  that  the  death 
rate  in  battle  is  inconsiderable.  Indeed,  when 
compared  with  the  number  of  men  and  women  who 
die  daily  of  small-pox  and  fever  and  those  who  are 
butchered  on  the  plantations,  the  proportion  of 
killed  in  battle  is  probably  about  one  to  fifteen.    • 

I  have  no  statistics  to  prove  these  figures,  but, 
judging  from  the  hospital  reports  and  from  what  the 
consuls  tell  of  the  many  murders  of  pacificos,  I 
judge  that  that  proportion  would  be  rather  under 
than  above  the  truth.  George  Bronson  Rae,  the 
Herald  correspondent,  who  was  for  nine  months 
with  Maceo  and  Gomez,  and  who  saw  eighty  fights 
and  was  twice  wounded,  told  me  that  the  largest 
number  of  insurgents  he  had  seen  killed  in  one  bat- 
tle was  thirteen. 

Another  correspondent  said  that  a  Spanish  officer 
had  told  him  that  he  had  killed  forty  insurgents  out 
of  four  hundred  who  had  attacked  his  column. 


Insurgents   Firing  on   a  Spanish   Fort 
"One  Shot   for  a   Hundred" 


Cuba  in   War  Time  35 

"But  how  do  you  know  you  killed  that  many?" 
the  correspondent  asked.  "You  say  you  were 
never  nearer  than  half  a  mile  to  them,  and  that  you 
fell  back  into  the  town  as  soon  as  they  ceased 
firing-." 

"Ah,  but  I  counted  the  cartridges  my  men  had 
used,"  the  officer  replied.  "I  found  they  had  ex- 
pended four  hundred.  By  allowing  ten  bullets  to 
each  man  killed,  I  was  able  to  learn  that  we  had 
killed  forty  men." 

These  stories  show  how  little  reason  there  is  to 
speak  of  these  skirmishes  as  battles,  and  it  also 
throws  some  light  on  the  Spaniard's  idea  of  his 
own  marksmanship.  As  a  plain  statement  of  fact, 
and  without  any  exaggeration,  one  of  the  chief  rea- 
sons why  half  the  insurgents  in  Cuba  are  not  dead 
to-day  is  because  the  Spanish  soldiers  cannot  shoot 
well  enough  to  hit  them.  The  Mauser  rifle,  which 
is  used  by  all  the  Spanish  soldiers,  with  the  excep- 
tion of  the  Guardia  Civile,  is  a  most  excellent 
weapon  for  those  who  like  clean,  gentlemanly  war- 
fare, in  which  the  object  is  to  wound  or  to  kill  out- 
right, and  not  to  "shock"  the  enemy  nor  to  tear  his 
flesh  in  pieces.  The  weapon  has  hardly  any  tra- 
jectory up  to  one  thousand  yards,  but,  in  spite  of 
its  precision,  it  is  as  useless  in  the  hands  of  a  guer- 
rilla or  the  average  Spanish  soldier  as  a  bow  and 


36  Cuba  in  War   Time 

arrow  would  be.  The  fact  that  when  the  Spaniards 
say  "within  gun  fire  of  the  forts"  they  mean  within 
one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  of  them  shows  how 
they  estimate  their  own  skill.  Major  Grover  Flint, 
the  Journal  correspondent,  told  me  of  a  fight  that  he 
witnessed  in  which  the  Spaniards  fired  two  thou- 
sand rounds  at  forty  insurgents  only  two  hundred 
yards  away,  and  only  succeeded  in  wounding  three 
of  them.  Sylvester  Scovel  once  explained  this  bad 
marksmanship  to  me  by  pointing  out  that  to  shift 
the  cartridge  in  a  Mauser,  it  is  necessary  to  hold 
the  rifle  at  an  almost  perpendicular  angle,  and  close 
up  under  the  shoulder.  After  the  fresh  cartridge 
has  gone  home  the  temptation  to  bring  the  butt  to 
the  shoulder  before  the  barrel  is  level  is  too  great 
for  the  Spanish  Tommy,  and,  in  his  excitement,  he 
fires  most  of  his  ammunition  in  the  air  over  the 
heads  of  the  enemy.  He  also  fires  so  recklessly 
and  rapidly  that  his  gun  often  becomes  too  hot  for 
him  to  handle  it  properly,  and  it  is  not  an  unusual 
sight  to  see  him  rest  the  butt  on  the  ground  and 
pull  the  trigger  while  the  gun  is  in  that  position. 

On  the  whole,  the  Spanish  soldiers  during  this 
war  in  Cuba  have  contributed  little  to  the  informa- 
tion of  those  who  are  interested  in  military  science. 
The  tactics  which  the  officers  follow  are  those 
which  were  found  effective  at  the  battle  of  Water- 


Cuba  in   War   Time  37 

loo,  and  in  the  Peninsular  campaign.  When  at- 
tacked from  an  ambush  a  Spanish  column  forms  at 
once  into  a  hollow  square,  with  the  cavalry  in  the 
centre,  and  the  firing  is  done  in  platoons.  They 
know  nothing  of  "open  order,"  or  of  firing  in  skir- 
mish line.  If  the  Cubans  were  only  a  little  better 
marksmen  than  their  enemies  they  should,  with 
such  a  target  as  a  square  furnishes  them,  kill  about 
ten  men  where  they  now  wound  one. 

With  the  war  conducted  under  the  conditions 
described  here,  there  does  not  seem  to  be  much 
promise  of  its  coming  to  any  immediate  end  unless 
some  power  will  interfere.  The  Spaniards  will 
probably  continue  to  remain  inside  their  forts,  and 
the  officers  will  continue  to  pay  themselves  well  out 
of  the  rebellion. 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  the  insurgents  who 
call  themselves  rich  when  they  have  three  cart- 
ridges, as  opposed  to  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  cart- 
ridges that  every  Spanish  soldier  carries,  will  prob- 
ably very  wisely  continue  to  refuse  to  force  the 
issue  in  anv  one  battle. 


The  Fate  of  the   Pacificos 


The   Fate  of  the 
Pacificos 

As  is  already  well  known  in  the  United  States, 
General  Weyler  issued  an  order  some  months  ago 
commanding  the  country  people  living  in  the  prov- 
inces of  Pinar  del  Rio,  Havana  and  Matanzas  to 
betake  themselves  with  their  belongings  to  the  for- 
tified towns.  His  object  in  doing  this  was  to  pre- 
vent the  pacificos  from  giving  help  to  the  insur- 
gents, and  from  sheltering  them  and  the  wounded 
in  their  huts.  So  flying  columns  of  guerrillas  and 
Spanish  soldiers  were  sent  to  burn  these  huts,  and 
to  drive  the  inhabitants  into  the  suburbs  of  the  cit- 
ies. When  I  arrived  in  Cuba  sufficient  time  had 
passed  for  me  to  note  the  effects  of  this  order,  and 
to  study  the  results  as  they  are  to  be  found  in  the 
provinces  of  Havana,  Matanzas  and  Santa-  Clara, 
the  order  having  been  extended  to  embrace  the  lat- 
ter province. 

It  looked  then  as  though  General  Weyler  was 
reaping  what  he  had  sown,  and  was  face  to  face 


42  Cuba   in   War  Time 

with  a  problem  of  liis  own  creating'.  As  far  as 
a  visitor  could  judge,  the  results  of  this  famous  or- 
der seemed  to  furnish  a  better  argument  to  those 
who  think  the  United  States  should  interfere  in  be- 
half of  Cuba,  than  did  the  fact  that  men  were  being 
killed  there,  and  that  both  sides  were  devastating 
the  island  and  wrecking  property  worth  millions  of 
dollars. 

The  order,  apart  from  being  unprecedented  in 
warfare,  proved  an  exceedingly  short-sighted  one, 
and  acted  almost  immediately  after  the  manner  of 
a  boomerang.  The  able-bodied  men  of  each  family 
who  had  remained  loyal  or  at  least  neutral,  so  long 
as  they  were  permitted  to  live  undisturbed  on  their 
few  acres,  were  not  content  to  exist  on  the  charity 
of  a  city,  and  they  swarmed  over  to  the  insur- 
gent ranks  by  the  hundreds,  and  it  was  only  the 
old  and  infirm  and  the  women  and  children  who 
went  into  the  towns,  where  they  at  once  became  a 
burden  on  the  Spanish  residents,  who  were  already 
distressed  by  the  lack  of  trade  and  the  high  prices 
asked  for  food. 

The  order  failed  also  in  its  original  object  of  em- 
barrassing the  insurgents,  for  they  are  used  to  liv- 
ing out  of  doors  and  to  finding  food  for  themselves, 
and  the  destruction  of  the  huts  where  they  had  been 
made  welcome  was  not  a  great  loss  to  men  who,  in 


The   Fate   of  the   Pacificos         43 

a  few  minutes,  with  the  aid  of  a  machete,  can  con- 
struct a  shelter  from  a  palm  tree. 

So  the  order  failed  to  distress  those  against  whom 
it  was  aimed,  hut  brought  swift  and  terrihle  suffer- 
ing to  those  who  were  and  are  absolutely  innocent 
of  any  intent  against  the  government,  as  well  as  to 
the  adherents  of  the  government. 

It  is  easy  to  imagine  what  happened  when  hun- 
dreds of  people,  in  some  towns  thousands,  were 
herded  together  on  the  hare  ground,  with  no  food, 
with  no  knowledge  of  sanitation,  with  no  covering 
for  their  heads  but  palm  leaves,  with  no  privacy  for 
the  women  and  young  girls,  with  no  thought  but  as 
to  how  they  could  live  until  to-morrow. 

It  is  true  that  in  the  country,  also,  these  people 
had  no  covering  for  their  huts  but  palm  leaves,  but 
those  huts  were  made  stoutly  to  endure.  When 
a  man  built  one  of  them  he  was  building  his  home, 
not  a  shelter  tent,  and  they  were  placed  well  apart 
from  one  another,  with  the  free  air  of  the  plain  or 
mountain  blowing  about  them,  with  room  for  the 
sun  to  beat  down  and  drink  up  the  impurities,  and 
with  patches  of  green  things  growing  in  rows  over 
the  few  acres.  I  have  seen  them  like  that  all  over 
Cuba,  and  I  am  sure  that  no  disease  could  have 
sprung  from  houses  built  so  admirably  to  admit  the 
sun  and  the  air. 


44  Cuba  in   War  Time 

I  have  also  seen  them,  I  might  add  in  parenthe- 
sis, rising  in  sluggish  columns  of  black  smoke 
against  the  sky,  hundreds  of  them,  while  those  who 
had  lived  in  them  for  years  stood  huddled  together 
at  a  distance,  watching  the  flames  run  over  the  dry 
rafters  of  their  homes,  roaring  and  crackling  with 
delight,  like  something  human  or  inhuman,  and 
marring  the  beautiful  sunlit  landscape  with  great 
blotches    of  red  flames. 

The  huts  in  which  these  people  live  at  present 
lean  one  against  the  other,  and  there  are  no  broad 
roads  nor  green  tobacco  patches  to  separate  one 
from  another.  There  are,  on  the  contrary,  only 
narrow  paths,  two  feet  wide,  where  dogs  and 
tattle  and  human  beings  tramp  over  daily  growing 
heaps  of  refuse  and  garbage  and  filth,  and  where 
malaria  rises  at  night  in  a  white  winding  sheet  of 
poisonous  mist. 

The  condition  of  these  people  differs  in  degree; 
some  are  living  the  life  of  gypsies,  others  are  as  des- 
titute as  so  many  shipwrecked  emigrants,  and  still 
others  find  it  difficult  to  hold  up  their  heads  and 
breathe. 

In  Jaruco,  in  the  Havana  province,  a  town  of 
only  two  thousand  inhabitants,  the  deaths  from 
small-pox  averaged  seven  a  day  for  the  month  of 
December,  and  while   Frederic   Remington  and  I 


A    Spanish    Guerrilla 


The  Fate  of  the  Pacificos         47 

were  there,  six  victims  of  small-pox  were  carried 
past  us  up  the  hill  to  the  burying  ground  in  the 
space  of  twelve  hours.  There  were  Spanish  sol- 
diers as  well  as  pacificos  among  these,  for  the 
Spanish  officers  either  know  or  care  nothing  about 
the  health  of  their  men. 

There  is  no  attempt  made  to  police  these  military 
camps,  and  in  Jaruco  the  filth  covered  the  streets 
and  the  plaza  ankle-deep,  and  even  filled  the  cor- 
ners of  the  church  which  had  been  turned  into  a 
fort,  and  had  hammocks  swung  from  the  altars. 
The  huts  of  the  pacificos,  with  from  four  to  six  peo- 
ple in  each,  were  jammed  together  in  rows  a  quar- 
ter of  a  mile  long,  within  ten  feet  of  the  cavalry 
barracks,  where  sixty  men  and  horses  had  lived  for 
a  month.  Next  to  the  stables  were  the  barracks.  No 
one  was  vaccinated,  no  one  was  clean,  and  all  of 
them  were  living  on  half  rations. 

Jaruco  was  a  little  worse  than  the  other  towns, 
but  I  found  that  the  condition  of  the  people  is  about 
the  same  everywhere.  Around  every  town  and 
even  around  the  forts  outside  of  the  towns,  you  will 
see  from  one  hundred  to  five  hundred  of  these  palm 
huts,  with  the  people  crouched  about  them,  covered 
with  rags,  starving,  with  no  chance  to  obtain  work. 

In  the  city  of  Matanzas  the  huts  have  been  built 
upon  a  hill,  and  so  far  neither  small-pox  nor  yellow 


48  Cuba  in   War  Time 

fever  has  made  headway  there;  but  there  is  nothing 
for  these  people  to  eat,  either,  and  while  I  was  there 
three  babies  died  from  plain,  old-fashioned  starva- 
tion and  no  other  cause. 

The  government's  report  for  the  year  just  ended 
gives  the  number  of  deaths  in  three  hospitals  of 
Matanzas  as  three  hundred  and  eighty  for  the  year, 
which  is  an  average  of  a  little  over  one  death  a  day. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  in  the  military  hospital  alone  the 
soldiers  during  several  months  of  last  year  died  at 
the  rate  of  sixteen  a  day.  It  seems  hard  that  Spain 
should  hold  Cuba  at  such  a  sacrifice  of  her  own 
people. 

In  Cardenas,  one  of  the  principal  seaport  towns 
of  the  island,  I  found  the  pacificos  lodged  in  huts  at 
the  back  of  the  town  and  also  in  abandoned 
warehouses  along  the  water  front.  The  condition 
of  these  latter  was  so  pitiable  that  it  is  difficult  to 
describe  it  correctly  and  hope  to  be  believed. 

The  warehouses  are  built  on  wooden  posts 
about  fifty  feet  from  the  water's  edge.  They  were 
originally  nearly  as  large  in  extent  as  Madison 
Square  Garden,  but  the  half  of  the  roof  of  one  has 
fallen  in,  carrying  the  flooring  with  it,  and  the 
adobe  walls  and  one  side  of  the  sloping  roof  and  tin' 
high  wooden  piles  on  which  half  of  the  floor  once 
rested  are  all  that  remain 


The  Fate  of  the   Paciiicos         49 

Some  time  ago  an  unusually  high  tide  swept  in 
under  one  of  these  warehouses  and  left  a  pool  of 
water  a  hundred  yards  long  and  as  many  wide, 
around  the  wooden  posts,  and  it  has  remained  there 
undisturbed.  This  pool  is  now  covered  a  half-inch 
thick  with  green  slime,  colored  blue  and  yellow, 
and  with  a  damp  fungus  spread  over  the  wooden 
posts  and  up  the  sides  of  the  walls. 

Over  this  sewage  are  now  living  three  hundred 
women  and  children  and  a  few  men.  The  floor  be- 
neath them  has  rotted  away,  and  the  planks  have 
broken  and  fallen  into  the  pool,  leaving  big  gaps, 
through  which  rise  day  and  night  deadly  stenches 
and  poisonous  exhalations  from  the  pool  below. 

The  people  above  it  are  not  ignorant  of  their  sit- 
uation. They  know  that  they  are  living  over  a 
death-trap,  but  there  is  no  other  place  for  them, 
Bands  of  guerrillas  and  flying  columns  have  driven 
them  in  like  sheep  to  this  city,  and,  with  no  money 
and  no  chance  to  obtain  work,  they  have  taken 
shelter  in  the  only  place  that  is  left  open  to  them. 

With  planks  and  blankets  and  bits  of  old  sheet 
iron  they  have,  for  the  sake  of  decency,  put  up  bar- 
riers across  these  abandoned  warehouses,  and  there 
they  are  now  sitting  on  the  floor  or  stretched  on 
heaps  of  rags,  gaunt  and  hollow-eyed.  Outside,  in 
the  angles  of  the  fallen  walls,  and  among  the  refuse 


50  Cuba  in  War  Time 

of  the  warehouses,  they  have  built  fireplaces,  and. 
with  the  few  pots  and  kettles  they  use  in  common, 
they  cook  what  food  the  children  can  find  or  beg. 

One  gentleman  of  Cardenas  told  me  that  a  hun- 
dred of  these  people  called  at  his  house  every  day 
for  a  bit  of  food. 

Old  negroes  and  little  white  children,  some  of 
them  as  beautiful,  in  spite  of  their  rags,  as  any  chil- 
dren I  ever  saw,  act  as  providers  for  this  hapless 
colony.  They  beg  the  food  and  gather  the  sticks 
and  do  the  cooking.  Inside  the  old  women  and 
young  mothers  sit  on  the  rotten  planks  listless  and 
silent,  staring  ahead  of  them  at  nothing. 

I  saw  the  survivors  of  the  Johnstown  flood  when 
the  horror  of  that  disaster  was  still  plainly  written 
in  their  eyes,  but  destitute  as  they  were  of  home  and 
food  and  clothing,  they  were  in  better  plight  than 
those  fever-stricken,  starving  pacificos,  who  have 
sinned  in  no  way,  who  have  given  no  aid  to  the  reb- 
els, and  whose  only  crime  is  that  they  lived  in  the 
country  instead  of  in  the  town.  They  are  now  to 
suffer  because  General  VVeyler,  finding  that  he  can- 
not hold  the  country  as  he  can  the  towns,  lays  it 
waste  and  treats  those  who  lived  there  with  less 
consideration  than  the  Sultan  of  Morocco  shows  to 
the  murderers  in  his  jail  at  Tangier.  Had  these 
people  been  guilty  of  the  most  unnatural  crimes, 


The  Fate  of  the  Paciiicos         5^ 

their  punishment  could  not  have  been  more  severe 
nor  their  end  more  certain. 

I  found  the  hospital  for  this  colony  behind  three 
blankets  which  had  been  hung  across  a  corner  of 
the  warehouse.  A  young-  woman  and  a  man  were 
lying  side  by  side,  the  girl  on  a  cot  and  the  man  on 
the  floor.  The  others  sat  within  a  few  feet  of  them 
on  the  other  side  of  the  blankets,  apparently  lost  to 
all  sense  of  their  danger,  and  too  dejected  and  hope- 
less to  even  raise  their  eyes  when  I  gave  them 
money. 

A  fat  little  doctor  was  caring  for  the  sick  woman, 
and  he  pointed  through  the  cracks  in  the  floor  at 
the  green  slime  below  us,  and  held  his  fingers  to  his 
nose  and  shrugged  his  shoulders.  I  asked  him 
what  ailed  his  patients,  and  he  said  it  was  yellow 
fever,  and  pointed  again  at  the  slime,  which  moved 
and  bubbled  in  the  hot  sun. 

He  showed  me  babies  with  the  skin  drawn  so 
tightly  over  their  little  bodies  that  the  bones 
showed  through  as  plainly  as  the  rings  under  a 
glove.  They  were  covered  with  sores,  and  they 
protested  as  loudly  as  they  could  against  the  treat- 
ment which  the  world  was  giving  them,  clinching 
their  fists  and  sobbing  with  pain  when  the  sore 
places  came  in  contact  with  their  mothers'  arms.  A 
planter   who   had   at   one   time   employed   a   large 


54  Cuba  in  War  Time 

number  of  these  people,  and  who  was  moving  about 
among  them,  said  that  five  hundred  had  died  in 
Cardenas  since  the  order  to  leave  the  fields  had 
been  issued.  Another  gentleman  told  me  that  in 
the  huts  at  the  back  of  the  town  there  had  been 
twenty-five  cases  of  small-pox  in  one  week,  of 
which  seventeen  had  resulted  in  death. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  United  States  will  in- 
terfere in  the  affairs  of  Cuba,  but  whatever  may- 
happen  later,  this  is  what  is  likely  to  happen  now, 
and  it  should  have  some  weight  in  helping  to  de- 
cide the  question  with  those  whose  proper  busi- 
ness it  is  to  determine  it. 

Thousands  of  human  beings  are  now  herded 
together  around  the  seaport  towns  of  Cuba  who 
cannot  be  fed,  who  have  no  knowledge  of  cleanli- 
ness or  sanitation,  who  have  no  doctors  to  care  for 
them  and  who  cannot  care  for  themselves. 

Many  of  them  are  dying  of  sickness  and  some  of 
starvation,  and  this  is  the  healthy  season.  In 
April  and  May  the  rains  will  come,  and  the  fever 
will  thrive  and  spread,  and  cholera,  yellow  fever 
and  small-pox  will  turn  Cuba  into  one  huge  plague 
spot,  and  the  farmers'  sons  whom  Spain  has  sent 
over  here  to  be  soldiers,  and  who  are  dying  by  the 
dozens  before  they  have  learned  to  pull  the  comb 
off  a  bunch  of  cartridges,  are  going  to  die  b\   the 


The  Fate  of  the  Pacificos         55 

hundreds,  and  women  and  children  who  are  inno- 
cent of  any  offense  will  die  with  them,  and  there 
will  be  a  quarantine  against  Cuba,  and  no  vessel 
can  come  into  her  ports  or  leave  them. 

All  this  is  going-  to  happen,  I  am  led  to  believe, 
not  from  what  I  saw  in  any  one  village,  but  in  hun- 
dreds of  villages.  It  will  not  do  to  put  it  aside  by 
saying  that  "War  is  war,"  and  that  "All  war  is 
cruel,"   or  to  ask,  "Am  I  my  brother's  keeper?" 

In  other  wars  men  have  fought  with  men,  and 
women  have  suffered  indirectly  because  the  men 
were  killed,  but  in  this  war  it  is  the  women,  herded 
together  in  the  towns  like  cattle,  who  are  going  to 
die,  while  the  men,  camped  in  the  fields  and  the 
mountains,  will  live. 

It  is  a  situation  which  charity  might  help  to  bet 
ter,  but  in  any  event  it  is  a  condition  which  deserves 
the  most  serious  consideration  from  men  of  com- 
mon sense  and  judgment,  and  one  no':  to  be  treated 
with  hysterical  head  lines  nor  put  aside  as  a  neces- 
sary evil  of  war, 


The   Death   of  Rodriguez 


c 


The  Death  of  Rodriguez 

Adolfo  Rodriguez  was  the  only  son  of  a  Cuban 
fanner,  who  lives  nine  miles  outside  of  Santa  Clara, 
beyond  the  hills  that  surround  that  city  to  the 
north. 

When  the  revolution  broke  out  young  Rodriguez 
joined  the  insurgents,  leaving  his  father  and  mother 
and  two  sisters  at  the  farm.  He  was  taken,  in 
December  of  1896,  by  a  force  of  the  Guardia  Civile, 
the  corps  d'elite  of  the  Spanish  army,  and  defended 
himself  when  they  tried  to  capture  him,  wounding 
three  of  them  with  his  machete. 

He  was  tried  by  a  military  court  for  bearing 
arms  against  the  government,  and  sentenced  to  be 
shot  by  a  fusillade  some  morning,  before  sunrise. 

Previous  to  execution,  he  was  confined  in  the 
military  prison  of  Santa  Clara,  with  thirty  other 
insurgents,  all  of  whom  were  sentenced  to  be  shot, 
one  after  the  other,  on  mornings  following  the  exe- 
cution of  Rodriguez. 

His  execution  took  place  the  morning  of  the  19th 
of  January,  at  a  place  a  half-mile  distant  from  the 
city,  on  the  great  plain  that  stretches  from  the  forts 


60  Cuba  in  War   Time 

out  to  the  hills,  beyond  which  Rodriguez  had  lived 
for  nineteen  years.  At  the  time  of  his  death  he  was 
twenty  years  old. 

I  witnessed  his  execution,  and  what  follows  is  an 
account  of  the  way  he  went  to  death.  The  young 
man's  friends  could  not  be  present,  for  it  was  im- 
possible for  them  to  show  themselves  in  that  crowd 
and  that  place  with  wisdom  or  without  distress,  and 
I  like  to  think  that,  although  Rodriguez  could  not 
know  it,  there  was  one  person  present  when  he  died 
who  felt  keenly  for  him,  and  who  was  a  sympa- 
thetic though  unwilling  spectator. 

There  had  been  a  full  moon  the  night  preceding 
the  execution,  and  when  the  squad  of  soldiers 
marched  out  from  town  it  was  still  shining  brightly 
through  the  mists,  although  it  was  past  five  o'clock. 
It  lighted  a  plain  two  miles  in  extent  broken  by 
ridges  and  gullies  and  covered  with  thick,  high  grass 
and  with  bunches  of  cactus  and  palmetto.  In  the 
hollow  of  the  ridges  the  mist  lay  like  broad  lakes  of 
water,  and  on  one  side  of  the  plain  stood  the  walls 
of  the  old  town.  On  the  other  rose  hills  covered 
with  royal  palms,  that  showed  white  in  the  moon- 
light, like  hundreds  of  marble  columns.  A  line  of 
tiny  camp  fires  that  the  sentries  had  built  during  the 
night  stretched  between  the  forts  at  regular  inter- 
vals and  burned  brightly. 


The   Death  of  Rodriguez  6  i 

But  as  the  light  grew  stronger,  and  the  moon- 
light faded,  these  were  stamped  out,  and  when  the 
soldiers  came  in  force  the  moon  was  a  white  ball  in 
the  sky,  without  radiance,  the  fires  had  sunk  to 
ashes,  and  the  sun  had  not  yet  risen. 

So,  even  when  the  men  were  formed  into  three 
sides  of  a  hollow  square,  they  were  scarcely  able  to 
distinguish  one  another  in  the  uncertain  light  of  the 
morning. 

There  were  about  three  hundred  soldiers  in  the 
formation.  They  belonged  to  the  Volunteers,  and 
they  deployed  upon  the  plain  with  their  band  in 
front,  playing  a  jaunty  quickstep,  while  their  offi- 
cers galloped  from  one  side  to  the  other  through 
the  grass,  seeking  out  a  suitable  place  for  the  ex- 
ecution, while  the  band  outside  the  line  still  played 
merrily. 

A  few  men  and  boys,  who  had  been  dragged  out 
of  their  beds  by  the  music,  moved  about  the  ridges, 
behind  the  soldiers,  half-clothed,  unshaven,  sleepy- 
eyed,  yawning  and  stretching  themselves  nerv- 
ously and  shivering  in  the  cool,  damp  air  of  the 
morning. 

Either  owing  to  discipline  or  on  account  of  the 
nature  of  their  errand  or  because  the  men  were 
still  but  half  awake,  there  was  no  talking  in  the 
ranks,  and  the  soldiers  stood  motionless,  leaning 


62  Cuba  in  War  Time 

on  their  rifles,  with  their  backs  turned  to  the  town, 
looking  out  across  the  plain  to  the  hills. 

The  men  in  the  crowd  behind  them  were  also 
grimly  silent.  They  knew  that  whatever  they 
might  say  would  be  twisted  into  a  word  of 
sympathy  for  the  condemned  man  or  a  protest 
against  the  government.  So  no  one  spoke;  even 
the  officers  gave  their  orders  in  gruff  whispers, 
and  the  men  in  the  crowd  did  not  mix  together, 
but  looked  suspiciously  at  one  another  and  kept 
apart. 

As  the  light  increased  a  mass  of  people  came  hur- 
rying from  the  town  with  two  black  figures  leading 
them,  and  the  soldiers  drew  up  at  attention,  and 
part  of  the  double  line  fell  back  and  left  an  opening 
in  the  square. 

With  us  a  condemned  man  walks  only  the  short 
distance  from  his  cell  to  the  scaffold  or  the  electric 
chair,  shielded  from  sight  by  the  prison  walls;  and 
it  often  occurs  even  then  that  the  short  journey  is 
too  much  for  his  strength  and  courage. 

But  the  merciful  Spaniards  on  this  morning 
made  the  prisoner  walk  for  over  a  half-mile  across 
the  broken  surface  of  the  fields.  I  expected  to 
find  the  man,  no  matter  what  his  strength  at  other 
times  might  be,  stumbling  and  faltering  on  this  cruel 
journey,  but  as  he  came  nearer  I  saw  that  he  led 


«* 


3pk 

Young  Spanish    Officer 


zA+^\ 


[ft* 


The  Death  of  Rodriguez  65 

all  the  others,  that  the  priests  on  either  side  of  him 
were  taking  two  steps  to  his  one,  and  that  they 
were  tripping  on  their  gowns  and  stumbling  over 
the  hollows,  in  their  efforts  to  keep  pace  with  him 
as  he  walked,  erect  and  soldierly,  at  a  quick  step  in 
advance  of  them. 

He  had  a  handsome,  gentle  face  of  the  peasant 
type,  a  light,  pointed  beard,  great  wistful  eyes  and  a 
mass  of  curly  black  hair.  He  was  shockingly 
young  for  such  a  sacrifice,  and  looked  more  like  a 
Xeapolitan  than  a  Cuban.  You  could  imagine  him 
sitting  on  the  quay  at  Xaples  or  Genoa,  lolling  in 
the  sun  and  showing  his  white  teeth  when  he 
laughed.  He  wore  a  new  scapula  around  his  neck, 
hanging  outside  his  linen  blouse. 

It  seems  a  petty  thing  to  have  been  pleased  with 
at  such  a  time,  but  I  confess  to  have  felt  a  thrill  of 
satisfaction  when  I  saw,  as  the  Cuban  passed  me, 
that  he  held  a  cigarette  between  his  lips,  not  arro- 
gantly nor  with  bravado,  but  with  the  nonchalance 
of  a  man  who  meets  his  punishment  fearlessly,  and 
who  will  let  his  enemies  see  that  they  can  kill  but 
can  not  frighten  him. 

It  was  very  quickly  finished,  with  rough,  and, 
but  for  one  frightful  blunder,  with  merciful  swift- 
ness. The  crowd  fell  back  when  it  came  to  the 
square,  and  the  condemned  man,  the  priests  and 


66  Cuba  in  War  Time 

the  firing  squad  of  six  young  volunteers  passed  in 
and  the  line  closed  behind  them. 

The  officer  who  had  held  the  cord  that  bound 
the  Cuban's  arms  behind  him  and  passed  across  his 
breast,  let  it  fall  on  the  grass  and  drew  his  sword, 
and  Rodriguez  dropped  his  cigarette  from  his  lips 
and  bent  and  kissed  the  cross  which  the  priest  held 
up  before  him. 

The  elder  of  the  priests  moved  to  one  side  and 
prayed  rapidly  in  a  loud  whisper,  while  the  other,  a 
younger  man,  walked  away  behind  the  firing  squad 
and  covered  his  face  with  his  hands  and  turned  his 
back.  They  had  both  spent  the  last  twelve  hours 
with  Rodriguez  in  the  chapel  of  the  prison. 

The  Cuban  walked  to  where  the  officer  directed 
him  to  stand,  and  turned  his  back  to  the  square 
and  faced  the  hills  and  the  road  across  them  which 
led  to  his  father's  farm. 

As  the  officer  gave  the  first  command  he 
straightened  himself  as  far  as  the  cords  would 
allow,  and  held  up  his  head  and  fixed  his  eyes 
immovably  on  the  morning  light  which  had  just 
begun  to  show  above  the  hills. 

He  made  a  picture  of  such  pathetic  helplessness, 
but  of  such  courage  and  dignity,  that  he  reminded 
me  on  the  instant  of  that  statue  of  Nathan  Hale, 
which  stands  in  the  Citv  Hall  Park,  above  the  roar  of 


The   Death  of  Rodriguez  67 

Broadway,  and  teaches  a  lesson  daily  to  the  hur- 
rying crowds  of  moneymakers  who  pass  beneath. 

The  Cuban's  arms  were  bound,  as  are  those  of  the 
statue,  and  he  stood  firmly,  with  his  weight  resting 
on  his  heels  like  a  soldier  on  parade,  and  with  his 
face  held  up  fearlessly,  as  is  that  of  the  statue.  But 
there  was  this  difference,  that  Rodriguez,  while 
probably  as  willing  to  give  six  lives  for  his  country 
as  was  the  American  rebel,  being  only  a  peasant, 
did  not  think  to  say  so,  and  he  will  not,  in  conse- 
quence, live  in  bronze  during  the  lives  of  many 
men,  but  will  be  remembered  only  as  one  of  thirty 
Cubans,  one  of  whom  was  shot  at  Santa  Clara  on 
each  succeeding  day  at  sunrise. 

The  officer  had  given  the  order,  the  men  had 
raised  their  pieces,  and  the  condemned  man  had 
heard  the  clicks  of  the  triggers  as  they  were  pulled 
back,  and  he  had  not  moved.  And  then  happened 
one  of  the  most  cruelly  refined,  though  uninten- 
tional, acts  of  torture  that  one  can  very  well 
imagine.  As  the  officer  slowly  raised  his  sword, 
preparatory  to  giving  the  signal,  one  of  the 
mounted  officers  rode  up  to  him  and  pointed  out 
silently  what  I  had  already  observed  with  some  sat- 
isfaction, that  the  firing  squad  were  so  placed  that 
when  they  fired  they  would  shoot  several  of  the  sol- 
diers stationed  on  the  extreme  end  of  the  square. 


68  Cuba   in  War  Time 

Their  captain  motioned  his  men  to  lower  their 
pieces,  and  then  walked  across  the  grass  and  laid 
his  hand  on  the  shoulder  of  the  waiting  prisoner. 

It  is  not  pleasant  to  think  what  that  shock  must 
have  been.  The  man  had  steeled  himself  to  receive 
a  volley  of  bullets  in  his  back.  He  believed  that  in 
the  next  instant  he  would  be  in  another  world;  he 
had  heard  the  command  given,  had  heard  the  click 
of  the  Mausers  as  the  locks  caught — and  then,  at 
that  supreme  moment,  a  human  hand  had  been 
laid  upon  his  shoulder  and  a  voice  spoke  in  his  ear. 

You  would  expect  that  any  man  who  had  been 
snatched  back  to  life  in  such  a  fashion  would  start 
and  tremble  at  the  reprieve,  or  would  break  down 
altogether,  but  this  boy  turned  his  head  steadily, 
and  followed  with  his  eyes  the  direction  of  the  ofri- 
cer's  sword,  then  nodded  his  head  gravely,  and, 
with  his  shoulders  squared,  took  up  a  new  position, 
straightened  his  back  again,  and  once  more  held 
himself  erect.  c 

As  an  exhibition  of  self-control  this  should  surely 
rank  above  feats  of  heroism  performed  in  battle, 
where  there  are  thousands  of  comrades  to  give  in- 
spiration. This  man  was  alone,  in  the  sight  of  the 
hills  he  knew,  with  only  enemies  about  him,  with 
no  source  to  draw  on  for  strength  but  that  which 
lay  within  himself. 


•  I. 


u 


h 


The  Death  of  Rodriguez  71 

The  officer  of  the  firing  squad,  mortified  by  his 
blunder,  hastily  whipped  up  his  sword,  the  men 
once  more  leveled  their  rifles,  the  sword  rose, 
dropped,  and  the  men  fired.  At  the  report  the 
Cuban's  head  snapped  back  almost  between  his 
shoulders,  but  his  body  fell  slowly,  as  though  some 
one  had  pushed  him  gently  forward  from  behind 
and  he  had  stumbled. 

He  sank  on  his  side  in  the  wet  grass  without  a 
struggle  or  sound,  and  did  not  move  again. 

It  was  difficult  to  believe  that  he  meant  to  lie 
there,  that  it  could  be  ended  so  without  a  word, 
that  the  man  in  the  linen  suit  would  not  get  up  on 
his  feet  and  continue  to  walk  on  over  the  hills,  as  he 
apparently  had  started  to  do,  to  his  home;  that  there 
was  not  a  mistake  somewhere,  or  that  at  least  some 
one  would  be  sorry  or  say  something  or  run  to  pick 
him  up. 

But,  fortunately,  he  did  not  need  help,  and  the 
priests  returned — the  younger  one,  with  the  tears 
running  down  his  face — and  donned  their  vest- 
ments and  read  a  brief  requiem  for  his  soul,  while 
the  squad  stood  uncovered,  and  the  men  in  hollow 
square  shook  their  accoutrements  into  place,  and 
shifted  their  pieces  and  got  ready  for  the  order  to 
march,  and  the  band  began  again  with  the  same 
quickstep  which  the  fusillade  had  interrupted. 


72  Cuba  in  War  Time 

The  figure  still  lay  on  the  grass  untouched,  and 
no  one  seemed  to  remember  that  it  had  walked 
there  of  itself,  or  noticed  that  the  cigarette  still 
burned,  a  tiny  ring  of  living  fire,  at  the  place  where 
the  figure  had  first  stood. 

The  figure  was  a  thing  of  the  past,  and  the  squad 
shook  itself  like  a  great  snake,  and  then  broke  into 
little  pieces  and  started  off  jauntily,  stumbling  in 
the  high  grass  and  striving  to  keep  step  to  the 
music. 

The  officers  led  it  past  the  figure  in  the  linen  suit, 
and  so  close  to  it  that  the  file  closers  had  to  part 
with  the  column  to  avoid  treading  on  it.  Each  sol- 
dier as  he  passed  turned  and  looked  down  on  it, 
some  craning  their  necks  curiously,  others  giving  a 
careless  glance,  and  some  without  any  interest  at 
all,  as  they  would  have  looked  at  a  house  by  the 
roadside  or  a  passing  cart  or  a  hole  in  the  road. 

One  young  soldier  caught  his  foot  in  a  trailing 
vine,  and  fell  forward  just  opposite  to  it.  He  grew 
very  red  when  his  comrades  giggled  at  him  for  his 
awkwardness.  The  crowd  of  sleepy  spectators  fell 
in  on  either  side  of  the  band.  They  had  forgotten 
it,  too,  and  the  priests  put  their  vestments  back  in 
die  bag  and  wrapped  their  heavy  cloaks  about 
them,  and  hurried  off  after  the  others. 

Every  one  seemed  to  have  forgotten  it   except 


The   Death   of  Rodriguez  73 

two  men,  who  came  slowly  toward  it  from  the  town, 
driving  a  bullock  cart  that  bore  an  unplaned  coffin, 
each  with  a  cigarette  between  his  lips,  and  with  his 
throat  wrapped  in  a  shawl  to  keep  out  the  morning 
mists. 

At  that  moment  the  sun,  which  had  shown  some 
promise  of  its  coming  in  the  glow  above  the  hills, 
shot  up  suddenly  from  behind  them  in  all  the 
splendor  of  the  tropics,  a  fierce,  red  disc  of  heat, 
and  filled  the  air  with  warmth  and  light. 

The  bayonets  of  the  retreating  column  flashed  in 
it.  and  at  the  sight  of  it  a  rooster  in  a  farmyard  near 
by  crowed  vigorously  and  a  dozen  bugles  answered 
the  challenge  with  the  brisk,  cheery  notes  of  the 
reveille,  and  from  all  parts  of  the  city  the  church 
bells  jangled  out  the  call  for  early  mass,  and  the 
whole  world  of  Santa  Clara  seemed  to  stir  and 
stretch  itself  and  to  wake  to  welcome  the  day  just 
begun. 

But  as  I  fell  in  at  the  rear  of  the  procession  and 
looked  back  the  figure  of  the  young  Cuban,  who 
was  no  longer  a  part  of  the  world  of  Santa  Clara, 
was  asleep  in  the  wet  grass,  with  his  motionless 
arms  still  tightly  bound  behind  him,  with  the  scap- 
ula twisted  awry  across  his  face  and  the  blood  from 
his  breast  sinking  into  the  soil  he  had  tried  to  free. 


Along  the   Trocha 


Regular   Cavalryman  —  Spanish 
76 


Along  the  Trocha 

This  is  an  account  of  a  voyage  of  discovery  along 
the  Spanish  trocha,  the  one  at  the  eastern  end  of 
Cuba.  It  is  the  longer  of  the  two,  and  stretches 
from  coast  to  coast  at  the  narrowest  part  of  that 
half  of  the  island,  from  Jucaro  on  the  south  to  Mo- 
ron on  the  north. 

Before  I  came  to  Cuba  this  time  I  had  read 
in  our  newspapers  about  the  Spanish  trocha  without 
knowing  just  what  a  trocha  was.  I  imagined  it  to 
be  a  rampart  of  earth  and  fallen  trees,  topped  with 
barbed  wire;  a  Rubicon  that  no  one  was  allowed  to 
pass,  but  which  the  insurgents  apparently  crossed 
at  will  with  the  ease  of  little  girls  leaping  over  a 
flying  skipping  rope.  In  reality  it  seems  to  be  a 
much  more  important  piece  of  engineering  than  is 
generally  supposed,  and  one  which,  when  com- 
pleted, may  prove  an  absolute  barrier  to  the  pro- 
gress of  large  bodies  of  troops  unless  they  are 
supplied  with  artillery. 

I  saw  twenty-five  of  its  fifty  miles,  and  the  engi- 
neers in  charge  told  me  that  I  was  the  first  Ameri- 
can, or  foreigner  of  any  nationality,  who  had  been 


yS  Cuba  in  War  Time 

allowed  to  visit  it  and  make  drawings  and  photo- 
graphs of  it.  Why  they  allowed  me  to  see  it  I  do 
not  know,  nor  can  I  imagine  either  why  they  should 
have  objected  to  my  doing  so.  There  is  no  great 
mystery  about  it. 

Indeed,  what  impressed  me  most  concerning 
it  was  the  fact  that  every  bit  of  material  used  in 
constructing  this  backbone  of  the  Spanish  defence, 
this  strategic  point  of  all  their  operations,  and  their 
chief  hope  of  success  against  the  revolutionists,  was 
furnished  by  their  despised  and  hated  enemies  in 
the  United  States.  Every  sheet  of  armor  plate, 
every  corrugated  zinc  roof,  every  roll  of  barbed 
wire,  every  plank,  beam,  rafter  and  girder,  even  the 
nails  that  hold  the  planks  together,  the  forts  them- 
selves, shipped  in  sections,  which  are  numbered  in 
readiness  for  setting  up,  the  ties  for  the  military  rail- 
road which  clings  to  the  trocha  from  one  sea  to  the 
other — all  of  these  have  been  supplied  by  manufac- 
turers in  the  United  States. 

This  is  interesting  when  one  remembers  that  the 
American  in  the  Spanish  illustrated  papers  is  rep- 
resented as  a  hog,  and  generally  with  the  United 
States  flag  for  trousers,  and  Spain  as  a  noble  and 
valiant  lion.  Yet  it  would  appear  that  the  lion  is 
willing  to  save  a  few  dollars  on  freight  by  buying 
his  armament  from  his  hoggish  neighbor,  and  that 


Along  the  Trocha'  79 

the  American  who  cheers  for  Cuba  Libre  is  not  at 
all  averse  to  making'  as  many  dollars  as  he  can  in 
building  the  wall  against  which  the  Cubans  may  be 
eventually  driven  and  shot. 

If  the  insurgents  have  found  as  much  difficulty  in 
crossing  the  trocha  by  land  as  I  found  in  reaching 
it  by  water,  they  are  deserving  of  all  sympathy  as 
patient  and  long-suffering  individuals. 

A  thick  jungle  stretches  for  miles  on  either  side 
of  the  trocha,  and  the  only  way  of  reaching  it 
from  the  outer  world  is  through  the  seaports  at 
either  end.  Of  these,  Moron  is  all  but  landlocked, 
and  Jucaro  is  guarded  by  a  chain  of  keys,  which 
make  it  necessary  to  reship  all  the  troops  and 
their  supplies  and  all  the  material  for  the  trocha  to 
lighters,  which  meet  the  vessels  six  miles  out  at 
sea. 

A  dirt}-  Spanish  steamer  drifted  with  us  for  two 
nights  and  a  day  from  Cienfuegos  to  Jucaro,  and 
three  hundred  Spanish  soldiers,  dusty,  ragged  and 
barefooted,  owned  her  as  completely  as  though  she 
had  been  a  regular  transport.  They  sprawled  at 
full  length  over  every  deck,  their  guns  were  stacked 
in  each  corner,  and  their  hammocks  swung  four 
deep  from  railings  and  riggings  and  across  com- 
panionwavs,  and  even  from  the  bridge  itself.  It 
was  not  possible  to  take  a  step  without  treading  on 


80  Cuba  in   War   Time 

one  of  them,  and  their  hammocks  made  a  walk  on 
the  deck  something  like  a  hurdle  race. 

With  the  soldiers,  and  crowding  them  for  space, 
were  the  officers'  mules  and  ponies,  steers,  calves 
and  squealing  pigs,  while  crates  full  of  chickens  were 
piled  on  top  of  one  another  as  high  as  the  hurricane 
deck,  so  that  the  roosters  and  the  buglers  vied  with 
each  other  in  continual  contests.  It  was  like  trav- 
eling with  a  floating  menagerie.  Twice  a  day  the 
bugles  sounded  the  call  for  breakfast  and  dinner, 
and  the  soldiers  ceased  to  sprawl,  and  squatted  on 
the  deck  around  square  tin  cans  filled  with  soup  or 
red  wine,  from  which  they  fed  themselves  with 
spoons  and  into  which  they  dipped  their  rations  of 
hard  tack,  after  first  breaking  them  on  the  deck 
with  a  blow  from  a  bayonet  or  crushing  them  with 
a  rifle  butt. 

The  steward  brought  what  was  supposed  to  be  a 
sample  of  this  soup  to  the  officer  seated  in  the  pilot 
house  high  above  the  squalor,  and  he  would  pick 
out  a  bean  from  the  mess  on  the  end  of  a  fork  and 
place  it  to  his  lips  and  nod  his  head  gravely,  and  the 
grinning  steward  would  carry  the  dish  away. 

But  the  soldiers  seemed  to  enjoy  it  very  much, 
and  to  be  content,  even  cheerful.  There  are  many 
things  to  admire  about  the  Spanish  Tommy.  In  the 
seven  fortified  cities  which  I  visited,  where  there 


One   of  the    Block    Houses 
From  a  photograph  taken  by  Mr.  Davis 


Along  the  Trocha  83 

were  thousands  of  him,  I  never  saw  one  drunk  or 
aggressive,  which  is  much  more  than  you  can  say  of 
his  officers.  On  the  march  he  is  patient,  eager 
and  alert.  He  trudges  from  fifteen  to  thirty  miles 
a  day  over  the  worst  roads  ever  constructed  by 
man,  in  canvas  shoes  with  rope  soles,  carrying 
one  hundred  and  fifty  cartridges,  fifty  across  his 
stomach  and  one  hundred  on  his  back,  weighing  in 
all  fifty  pounds. 

With  these  he  has  his  Mauser,  his  blanket  and  an 
extra  pair  of  shoes,  and  as  many  tin  plates  and  bot- 
tles and  bananas  and  potatoes  and  loaves  of  white 
bread  as  he  can  stow  away  in  his  blouse  and  knap- 
sack. And  this  under  a  sun  which  makes  even  a 
walking  stick  seem  a  burden.  In  spite  of  his  offi- 
cers, and  not  on  account  of  them,  he  maintains  good 
discipline,  and  no  matter  how  tired  he  may  be  or 
how  much  he  may  wish  to  rest  on  his  plank  bed,  he 
will  always  struggle  to  his  feet  when  the  officers 
pass,  and  stand  at  salute.  He  gets  very  little  in 
return  for  his  efforts. 

One  Sunday  night,  when  the  band  was  playing 
in  the  plaza,  at  a  heaven-forsaken  fever  camp  called 
Ciego  de  Avila,  a  group  of  soldiers  were  sitting 
near  me  on  the  grass  enjoying  the  music.  They 
ioitered  there  a  few  minutes  after  the  bugle  had 
sounded  the  retreat  to  the  barracks,  and  the  officer 


84  Cuba  in  War  Time 

of  the  day  found  them.  When  they  stood  up  he 
ordered  them  to  report  themselves  at  the  cartel 
under  arrest,  and  then,  losing  all  control  of  himself, 
lashed  one  little  fellow  over  the  head  with  his  col- 
onel's staff,  while  the  boy  stood  with  his  eyes  shut 
and  with  his  lips  pressed  together,  but  holding  his 
hand  at  salute  until  the  officer's  stick  beat  it  down. 

These  soldiers  are  from  the  villages  and  towns 
of  Spain;  some  of  them  are  not  more  than  seven- 
teen years  old,  and  they  are  not  volunteers.  They 
do  not  care  whether  Spain  owns  an  island  eighty 
miles  from  the  United  States,  or  loses  it,  but  they 
go  out  to  it  and  have  their  pay  stolen,  and  are  put 
to  building  earth  forts  and  stone  walls,  and  die  of 
fever.  It  seems  a  poor  return  for  their  unconscious 
patriotism  when  a  colonel  thrashes  one  of  them  as 
though  he  were  a  dog,  especially  as  he  knows  the 
soldier  may  not  strike  back. 

The  second  night  out  the  ship  steward  showed 
us  a  light  lying  low  in  the  water,  and  told  us  that 
was  Jucaro,  and  we  accepted  his  statement  and 
went  over  the  side  into  an  open  boat,  in  which  we 
drifted  about  until  morning,  while  the  colored  man 
who  owned  the  boat,  and  a  little  mulatto  boy  who 
steered  it,  quarreled  as  to  where  exactly  the  town 
of  Jucaro  might  be.  They  brought  us  up  at  last 
against  a  dark  shadow  of  a  house,  built  on  wooden 


Ite  v 


Spanish   Cavalry 
From  photographs  taken  by  Mr.  Davis 


Along  the  Trocha  87 

posts,  and  apparently  floating  in  the  water.  This 
was  the  town  of  Jncaro  as  seen  at  that  hour  of  the 
night,  and  as  we  left  it  hefore  sunrise  the  next 
morning,  I  did  not  know  until  my  return  whether 
I  had  slept  in  a  stationary  ark  or  on  the  end  of  a 
wharf. 

We  found  four  other  men  sleeping  on  the  floor 
in  the  room  assigned  us,  and  outside,  eating  by  a 
smoking  candle,  a  young  English  boy,  who  looked 
up  and  laughed  when  he  heard  us  speak,  and  said: 

"You've  come  at  last,  have  you?  You  are  the 
first  white  men  I've  seen  since  I  came  here.  That's 
twelve  months  ago." 

He  was  the  cable  operator  at  Jucaro;  and  he  sits 
all  day  in  front  of  a  sheet  of  white  paper,  and 
watches  a  ray  of  light  play  across  an  imaginary  line, 
and  he  can  tell  by  its  quivering,  so  he  says, 
all  that  is  going  on  all  over  the  world.  Out- 
side of  his  whitewashed  cable  office  is  the  land- 
locked bay,  filled  with  wooden  piles  to  keep 
out  the  sharks,  and  back  of  him  lies  the  village 
of  Jucaro,  consisting  of  two  open  places  filled  with 
green  slime  and  filth  and  thirty  huts.  But  the 
operator  said  that  what  with  fishing  and  bathing 
and  "Tit-Bits"  and  "Lloyd's  Weekly  Times,"  Ju- 
caro was  quite  enjoyable.  He  is  going  home  the 
year  after  this. 


88  Cuba  in  War  Time 

"At  least,  that's  how  I  put  it,"  he  explained. 
"My  contract  requires  me  to  stop  on  here  until  De- 
cember of  1898,  but  it  doesn't  sound  so  long  if  you 
say  'a  year  after  this,'  does  it?"  He  had  had  the 
yellow  fever,  and  had  never,  owing-  to  the  war,  been 
outside  of  Jucaro.  "Still,"  he  added,  "I'm  seeing 
the  world,  and  I've  always  wanted  to  visit  foreign 
parts." 

As  one  of  the  few  clean  persons  I  met  in  Cuba, 
and  the  only  contented  one,  I  hope  the  cable  oper- 
ator at  Jucaro  will  get  a  rise  in  salary  soon,  and 
some  day  see  more  of  foreign  parts  than  he  is  see- 
ing at  present,  and  at  last  get  back  to  "the  Horse 
Shoe,  at  the  corner  of  Tottenham  Court  Road  and 
Oxford  street,  sir,"  where,  as  we  agreed,  better  en- 
tertainment is  to  be  had  on  Saturday  night  than 
anywhere  in  London. 

In  Havana,  General  Weyler  had  given  me  a  pass 
to  enter  fortified  places,  which,  except  for  the 
authority  which  the  signature  implied,  meant  noth- 
ing, as  all  the  cities  and  towns  in  Cuba  are  fortified, 
and  any  one  can  visit  them.  It  was  as  though 
Mayor  Strong  had  given  a  man  a  permit  to  ride  in 
all  the  cable  cars  attached  to  cables. 

It  was  not  intended  to  include  the  trocha,  but  I 
argued  that  if  a  trocha  was  not  a  "fortified  place" 
nothing  else  was,  and  I  persuaded    the    comman- 


One    of  the    Forts    Along    the   Trocha 
From  photograph  taken  by  Mr.  Davis 


Along  the  Trocha  91 

dante  at  Jucaro  to  take  that  view  of  it  and  to  vise 
Weyler's  order.  So  at  five  the  following  morning  a 
box  car,  with  wooden  planks  stretched  across  it  for 
seats,  carried  me  along  the  line  of  the  trocha  from 
Jucaro  to  Ciego,  the  chief  military  port  on  the  for- 
tifications, and  consumed  five  hot  and  stifling  hours 
in  covering  twenty-five  miles. 

The  trocha  is  a  cleared  space,  one  hundred  and 
fifty  to  two  hundred  yards  wide,  which  stretches  for 
fifty  miles  through  what  is  apparently  an  impass- 
able jungle.  The  trees  which  have  been  cut  down 
in  clearing  this  passageway  have  been  piled  up  at 
either  side  of  the  cleared  space  and  laid  in  parallel 
rows,  forming  a  barrier  of  tree  trunks  and  roots 
and  branches  as  wide  as  Broadway  and  higher  than 
a  man's  head.  It  would  take  a  man  some  time  to 
pick  his  way  over  these  barriers,  and  a  horse  could 
no  more  do  it  than  it  could  cross  a  jam  of  floating 
logs  in  a  river. 

Between  the  fallen  trees  lies  the  single  track  of 
the  military  railroad,  and  on  one  side  of  that  is  the 
line  of  forts  and  a  few  feet  beyond  them  a  maze  of 
barbed  wire.  Beyond  the  barbed  wire  again  is 
the  other  barrier  of  fallen  trees  and  the  jungle.  In 
its  unfinished  state  this  is  not  an  insurmountable 
barricade.  Gomez  crossed  it  last  November  by 
daylight  with  six  hundred  men,  and  with  but  the 


92  Cuba  in  War  Time 

loss  of  twenty-seven  killed  and  as  many  wounded. 
To-day  it  would  be  more  difficult,  and  in  a  few 
months,  without  the  aid  of  artillery,  it  will  be 
impossible,  except  with  the  sacrifice  of  a  great  loss 
of  life.  The  forts  are  of  three  kinds.  They  are  best 
described  as  the  forts,  the  block  houses  and  the  lit- 
tle forts.  A  big  fort  consists  of  two  stories,  with  a 
cellar  below  and  a  watch  tower  above.  It  is  made 
of  stone  and  adobe,  and  is  painted  a  glaring 
white.  One  of  these  is  placed  at  intervals  of  every 
half  mile  along  the  trocha,  and  on  a  clear  day  the 
sentry  in  the  watch  tower  of  each  can  see  three  forts 
on  either  side. 

Midway  between  the  big  forts,  at  a  distance  of  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  from  each,  is  a  block  house  of  two 
stories  with  the  upper  story  of  wood,  overhanging 
the  lower  foundation  of  mud.  These  are  placed  at 
right  angles  to  the  railroad,  instead  of  facing  it,  as 
do  the  forts. 

Between  each  block  house  and  each  fort  are  three 
little  forts  of  mud  and  planks,  surrounded  by  a 
ditch.  They  look  something  like  a  farmer's  ice 
house  as  we  see  it  at  home,  and  they  are  about  as 
hot  inside  as  the  other  is  cold.  They  hold  five  men, 
and  are  within  hailing,  distance  of  one  another. 
Back  of  them  are  three  rows  of  stout  wooden 
stakes,  with  barbed  wire  stretching  from  one  row 


Along  the  Troeha  93 

to  the  other,  interlacing  and  crossing-  and  running 
in  and  out  above  and  below,  like  an  intricate  cat's 
cradle  of  wire. 

One  can  judge  how  closely  knit  it  is  by  the  fact 
that  to  every  twelve  yards  of  posts  there  are  four 
hundred  and  fifty  yards  of  wire  fencing.  The 
flirts  are  most  completely  equipped  in  their  way, 
but  twelve  men  in  the  jungle  would  find  it  quite 
easy  to  keep  twelve  men  securely  imprisoned  in  one 
of  them  for  an  indefinite  length  of  time. 

The  walls  are  about  twelve  feet  high,  with  a  cel- 
lar below  and  a  vault  above  the  cellar.  The  roof 
of  the  vault  forms  a  platform,  around  which  the 
four  walls  rise  to  the  height  of  a  man's  shoulder. 
There  are  loopholes  for  rifles  in  the  sides  of  the 
vault,  and  where  the  platform  joins  the  walls.  These 
latter  allow  the  men  in  the  fort  to  fire  down  almost 
directly  upon  the  head  of  any  one  who  comes 
up  close  to  the  wall  of  the  fort,  where,  without 
these  holes  in  the  floor,  it  would  be  impossible 
to  fire  on  him  except  by  leaning  far  over  the  ram- 
part. 

Above  the  platform  is  an  iron  or  zinc  roof,  sup- 
ported by  iron  pillars,  and  in  the  centre  of  this  is 
the  watch  tower.  The  only  approach  to  the  fort  is 
by  a  movable  ladder,  which  hangs  over  the  side  like 
the    gangway    of    a    ship    of    war,    and    can    be 


94  Cuba  in  War  Time 

raised  by  those  on  the  inside  by  means  of  a  rope 
suspended  over  a  wheel  in  the  roof.  The  opening 
in  the  wall  at  the  head  of  the  ladder  is  closed  at 
the  time  of  an  attack  by  an  iron  platform,  to  which 
the  ladder  leads,  and  which  also  can  be  raised  by  a 
pulley.  In  October  of  1S97  the  Spanish  hope  to 
have  calcium  lights  placed  in  the  watch  towers  of 
the  forts  with  sufficient  power  to  throw  a  search- 
light over  a  quarter  of  a  mile,  or  to  the  next  block 
house,  and  so  keep  the  trocha  as  well  lighted  as 
Broadway  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

As  a  further  protection  against  the  insurgents 
the  Spaniards  have  distributed  a  number  of  bombs 
along  the  trocha,  which  they  showed  with  great 
pride.  These  are  placed  at  those  points  along  the 
trocha  where  the  jungle  is  less  thickly  grown,  and 
where  the  insurgents  might  be  expected  to  pass. 

Each  bomb  is  fitted  with  an  explosive  cap,  to 
which  five  or  six  wires  are  attached  and  staked 
down  on  the  ground.  Any  one  stumbling  over 
one  of  these  wires  explodes  the  bomb  and  throws 
a  charge  of  broken  iron  to  a  distance  of  fifty  feet. 
How  the  Spaniards  are  going  to  prevent  stray 
cattle  and  their  own  soldiers  from  wandering  into 
these  man-traps  it  is  difficult  to  understand. 

The  chief  engineer  in  charge  of  the  trocha  de- 
tailed a  captain  to  take  me  over  it  and  to  show  me 


The  Trocha 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Mr.  Davis 


Along  the  Trocha  97 

all  that  there  was  to  see.  The  officers  of  the  in- 
fantry and  cavalry  stationed  at  Ciego  objected  to 
his  doing  this,  but  he  said:  "He  has  a  pass  from 
General  Weyler.  I  am  not  responsible."  It  was 
true  that  I  had  an  order  from  General  Weyler, 
but  he  had  rendered  it  ineffective  by  having  me 
followed  about  wherever  I  went  by  his  police  and 
spies.  They  sat  next  to  me  in  the  cafes  and  in  the 
plazas,  and  when  I  took  a  cab  they  called  the  next 
one  on  the  line  and  trailed  after  mine  all  around  the 
city,  until  my  driver  would  become  alarmed  for  fear 
he,  too,  was  suspected  of  something,  and  would 
take  me  back  to  the  hotel. 

I  had  gotten  rid  of  them  at  Cienfuegos  by  pur- 
chasing a  ticket  on  the  steamer  to  Santiago,  three 
days  further  down  the  coast,  and  then  dropping  off 
in  the  night  at  the  trocha,  so  while  I  was  visiting  it 
I  expected  to  find  that  my  non-arrival  at  Santiago 
had  been  reported,  and  word  sent  to  the  trocha  that 
I  was  a  newspaper  correspondent.  And  whenever 
an  officer  spoke  to  the  one  who  was  showing  me 
about,  my  camera  appeared  to  grow  to  the  size  of 
a  trunk,  and  to  weigh  like  lead,  and  I  felt  lonely, 
and  longed  for  the  company  of  the  cheerful  cable 
operator  at  the  other  end  of  the  trocha. 

But  as  I  had  seen  Mr.  Gillette  in  "Secret  Ser- 
vice"  only   seventeen   times   before   leaving    New 


98  Cuba  in  War  Time 

York,  I  knew  just  what  to  do,  which  was  to  smoke 
all  the  time  and  keep  cool.  The  latter  require- 
ment was  somewhat  difficult,  as  Ciego  de  Avila  is  a 
hotter  place  than  Richmond.  Indeed,  I  can  only 
imagine  one  place  hotter  than  Ciego,  and  I  have  not 
been  there. 

Ciego  was  an  interesting  town.  During  every 
day  of  the  last  rainy  season  an  average  of  thirty 
soldiers  and  officers  died  there  of  yellow  fever. 
While  I  was  there  I  saw  two  soldiers,  one  quite  an 
old  man,  drop  down  in  the  street  as  though  they 
had  been  shot,  and  lie  in  the  road  until  they  were 
carried  to  the  yellow  fever  ward  of  the  hospital, 
under  the  black  oilskin  cloth  of  the  stretchers. 

There  was  a  very  smart  officers'  club  at  Ciego 
well  supplied  with  a  bar  and  billiard  tables,  which  I 
made  some  excuse  for  not  entering,  but  which 
could  be  seen  through  its  open  doors,  and  I  sug- 
gested to  one  of  the  members  that  it  must  be  a 
comfort  to  have  such  a  place,  where  the  officers 
might  go  after  their  day's  march  on  the  mud  banks 
of  the  trocha,  and  where  they  could  bathe  and  be 
cool  and  clean.  He  said  there  were  no  baths  in  the 
club  nor  anywhere  in  the  town.  He  added  that  he 
thought  it  might  be  a  good  idea  to  have  them. 

The  bath  tub  is  the  dividing  line  between  savages 
and    civilized    beingfs.     And    when  I  learned    that 


Along  the  Trocha  99 

regiment  after  regiment  of  Spanish  officers  and 
gentlemen  have  been  stationed  in  that  town — and 
it  was  the  dirtiest,  hottest  and  dustiest  town  I  ever 
visited — for  eighteen  months,  and  none  of  them 
had  wanted  a  bath,  I  believed  from  that  moment  all 
the  stories  I  had  heard  about  their  butcheries  and 
atrocities,  stories  which  I  had  verified  later  by 
more  direct  evidence. 

From  a  military  point  of  view  the  trocha  im- 
pressed me  as  a  weapon  which  could  be  made  to 
cut  both  ways.  What  the  Spaniards  think  of  it  is 
shown  by  the  caricature  which  appeared  lately  in 
"Don  Quixote,"  and  which  shows  the  United 
States  represented  by  a  hog  and  the  insurgents  rep- 
resented by  a  negro  imprisoned  in  the  trocha,  while 
Weyler  stands  ready  to  turn  the  Spanish  lion  on 
them  and  watch  it  gobble  them  up. 

It  would  be  unkind  were  Spain  to  do  anything  so 
inconsiderate,  and  besides,  the  United  States  is 
rather  a  large  mouthful  even  without  the  insur- 
gents who  taken  alone  seem  to  have  given  the  lion 
some  pangs  of  indigestion. 

If  the  trocha  were  situated  on  a  broad  plain  or 
prairie  with  a  mile  of  clear  ground  on  either  side  of 
it,  where  troops  could  manoeuvre,  and  which  would 
prevent  the  enemy  from  stealing  up  to  it  unseen,  it 
might  be  a  useful  line  of  defence.     But  at  present, 


ioo  Cuba  in  War  Time 

along  its  entire  length,  stretches  this  almost  impas- 
sable barrier  of  jungle.  Now  suppose  the  troops 
are  sent  at  short  notice  from  the  military  camps 
along  the  line  to  protect  any  particular  point? 

Not  less  than  a  thousand  soldiers  must  be  sent 
forward,  and  one  can  imagine  what  their  condition 
would  be  were  they  forced  to  manoeuvre  in  a  space 
one  hundred  and  fifty  yards  broad,  the  half  of  which 
is  taken  up  with  barbed  wire  fences,  fallen  trees  and 
explosive  bomb  shells.  Only  two  hundred  at  the 
most  could  find  shelter  in  the  forts,  which  would 
mean  that  eight  hundred  men  would  be  left  outside 
the  breastworks  and  scattered  over  a  distance  of  a 
half  mile,  with  a  forest  on  both  sides  of  them,  from 
which  the  enemy  could  fire  volley  after  volley  into 
their  ranks,  protected  from  pursuit  not  only  by  the 
jungle,  but  by  the  walls  of  fallen  trees  which  the 
Spaniards  themselves  have  placed  there. 

A  trocha  in  an  open  plain,  as  were  the  English 
trochas  in  the  desert  around  Suakin,  makes  an  ad- 
mirable defence,  when  a  few  men  are  forced  to 
withstand  the  assault  of  a  great  many,  but  fighting 
behind  a  trocha  in  a  jungle  is  like  fighting  in  an 
ambush,  and  if  the  trocha  at  Moron  is  ever  at- 
tacked in  force  it  will  prove  to  be  a  Valley  of  Death 
to  the  Spanish  troops. 


The   Ouestion    of 
Atrocities 


'■'•    •      ; 


■A    :■ 


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h 


O-, 
C/3 


The  Question  of 
Atrocities 

One  of  the  questions  that  is  most  frequently 
asked  of  those  who  have  been  in  Cuba  is  how  much 
truth  exists  in  the  reports  of  Spanish  butcheries.  It 
is  safe  to  say  in  answer  to  this  that  while  the  report 
of  a  particular  atrocity  may  not  be  true,  other  atro- 
cities just  as  horrible  have  occurred  and  nothing 
has  been  heard  of  them.  I  was  somewhat  skepti- 
cal of  Spanish  atrocities  until  I  came  to  Cuba, 
chiefly  because  I  had  been  kept  sufficiently  long  in 
Key  West  to  learn  how  large  a  proportion  of 
Cuban  war  news  is  manufactured  on  the  piazzas  of 
the  hotels  of  that  town  and  of  Tampa  by  utterly 
irresponsible  newspaper  men  who  accept  every 
rumor  that  finds  its  way  across  the  gulf,  and  pass 
these  rumors  on  to  some  of  the  New  York  papers 
as  facts  coming  direct  from  the  field. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  one  becomes  skeptical, 
i'or  if  one  story  proves  to  be  false,  how  is  the  reader 
to  know  that  the  others  are  not  inventions  also? 


104  Cuba  in  War  Time 

It  is  difficult  to  believe,  for  instance,  the  account  of 
a  horrible  butchery  if  you  read  in  the  para- 
graph above  it  that  two  correspondents  have  been 
taken  prisoners  by  the  Spanish,  when  both  of  these 
gentlemen  are  sitting-  beside  you  in  Key  West  and 
are,  to  your  certain  knowledge,  reading  the  para- 
graph over  your  shoulder.  Nor  is  it  unnatural 
that  one  should  grow  doubtful  of  reported  Cuban 
victories  if  he  reads  of  the  taking  of  Santa  Clara 
and  the  flight  of  the  Spanish  garrison  from  that 
city j  when  he  is  living  at  Santa  Clara  and  cannot 
find  a  Cuban  in  it  with  sufficient  temerity  to  assist 
him  to  get  out  of  it  through  the  Spanish  lines. 

But  because  a  Jacksonville  correspondent  has 
invented  the  tale  of  one  butchery,  it  is  no  reason 
why  the  people  in  the  United  States  should  dismiss 
all  the  others  as  sensational  fictions.  After  I  went 
to  Cuba  I  refused  for  weeks  to  listen  to  tales 
of  butcheries,  because  I  did  not  believe  in  them 
and  because  there  seemed  to  be  no  way  of 
verifying  them — those  who  had  been  butchered 
could  not  testify  and  their  relatives  were  too  fearful 
of  the  vengeance  of  the  Spaniards  to  talk  about 
what  had  befallen  a  brother  or  a  father.  But 
towards  the  end  of  my  visit  I  went  to  Sagua  la 
Grande  and  there  met  a  number  of  Americans  and 
Englishmen,     concerning     whose     veracity     there 


The   Question   of  Atrocities       105 

could  be  no  question.  What  had  happened  to 
their  friends  and  the  laborers  on  their  plantations 
was  exactly  what  had  happened  and  is  happening- 
to-day  to  other  pacificos  all  over  the  island. 

Sagua  la  Grande  is  probably  no  worse  a  city 
than  others  in  Cuba,  but  it  has  been  rendered 
notorious  by  the  presence  in  that  city  of  the  guer- 
rilla chieftain,  Benito  Cerreros. 

Early  in  last  December  Leslie's  Illustrated  Weekly 
published  half-tone  reproductions  of  two  photo- 
graphs which  were  taken  in  Sagua.  One  was  a  pic- 
ture of  the  bodies  of  six  Cuban  pacificos  lying  on 
their  backs,  with  their  arms  and  legs  bound  and 
their  bodies  showing  mutilation  by  machetes,  and 
their  faces  pounded  and  hacked  out  of  resemblance 
to  anything  human.  The  other  picture  was  of  a 
group  of  Spanish  guerrillas  surrounding  their 
leader,  a  little  man  with  a  heavy  mustache.  His 
face  was  quite  as  inhuman  as  the  face  of  any  of  the 
dead  men  he  had  mutilated.  It  wore  a  satisfied  smile 
of  fatuous  vanity,  and  of  the  most  diabolical  cruelty. 
No  artist  could  have  drawn  a  face  from  his  imagina- 
tion which  would  have  been  more  cruel.  The 
letter  press  accompanying  these  photographs 
explained  that  this  guerrilla  leader,  Benito  Cerre- 
ros, had  found  six  unarmed  pacificos  working  in  a 
field  near  Sagua,  and  had  murdered  them  and  then 


106  Cuba  in  War  Time 

brought  their  bodies  in  a  <~art  to  that  town,  and  had 
paid  the  local  photographer  to  take  a -picture  of 
them  and  of  himself  and  his  body  guard.  He 
claimed  that  he  had  killed  the  Cubans  in  open  bat- 
tle, but  was  so  stupid  as  to  forget  to  first  remove 
the  ropes  with  which  he  had  bound  them  before  he 
shot  them.  The  photographs  told  the  story  with- 
out any  aid  from  the  letter  press,  and  it  must  have, 
told  it  to  a  great  many  people,  judging  from  the 
number  who  spoke  of  it.  It  seemed  as  if,  for  the 
first  time,  something  definite  regarding  the  reported 
Spanish  atrocities  had  been  placed  before  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States,  which  they  could  see  for 
themselves.  I  had  this  photograph  in  my  mind 
when  I  came  to  Sagua,  and  on  the  night  that  I  ar- 
rived there,  by  a  coincidence,  the  townspeople  were 
giving  Cerreros  a  dinner  to  celebrate  a  fresh  victory 
of  his  over  two  insurgents,  a  naturalized  American 
and  a  native  Cuban. 

The  American  was  visiting  the  Cuban  in  the 
field,  and  they  were  lying  in  hiding  outside  of  the 
town  in  a  hut.  The  Cuban,  who  was  a  colonel  in 
the  insurgent  army,  had  captured  a  Spanish  spy, 
but  had  given  him  his  liberty  on  the  condition  that 
he  would  go  into  Sagua  and  bring  back  some  medi- 
cines. The  colonel  was  dying  of  consumption,  but 
he  hoped  that,  with  proper  medicine,  he  might  re- 


Amateur   Surgery    in    Cuba 


The  Question  of  Atrocities      i  09 

main  alive  a  few  months  longer.  The  spy,  instead  of 
keeping  his  word,  betrayed  the  hiding  place  of  the 
Cuban  and  the  American  to  Cerreros,  who  rode  out 
by  night  to  surprise  them.  He  took  with  him 
thirty-two  guerrillas,  and,  lest  that  might  not  be 
enough  to  protect  him  from  two  men,  added  twelve 
of  the  Guarda  Civile  to  their  number,  making  forty- 
four  men  in  all.  They  surrounded  the  hut  in  which 
the  Cuban  and  the  American  were  concealed,  and 
shot  them  through  the  window  as  they  sat  at  a 
table  in  the  light  of  a  candle.  They  then  hacked 
the  bodies  with  machetes.  It  was  in  recognition  of 
this  victory  that  the  banquet  was  tendered  to  Cer- 
reros by  admiring  friends. 

Civilized  nations  recognize  but  three  methods  of 
dealing  with  prisoners  captured  in  war.  They  are 
either  paroled  or  exchanged  or  put  in  prison;  that 
is  what  was  done  with  them  in  our  rebel- 
lion. It  is  not  allowable  to  shoot  prisoners;  at 
least  it  is  not  generally  done  when  they  are  seated 
unconscious  of  danger  at  a  table.  It  may  be  said, 
however,  that,  as  these  two  men  were  in  arms 
against  the  government,  they  were  only  suffering 
the  punishment  of  their  crime,  and  that  this  is  not  a 
good  instance  of  an  atrocity.  There  are,  however, 
unfortunately,  many  other  instances  in  which  the 
victims  were  non-combatants  and  their  death  sim- 


iio  Cuba   in  War  Time 

ply  murder.  But  it  is  extremely  difficult  to  tell 
convincingly  of  these  cases,  without  giving  names, 
and  the  giving  of  names  might  lead  to  more  deaths 
in  Sagua.  It  is  also  difficult  to  convince  the  reader 
of  murders  for  which  there  seems  to  have  been  no 
possible  object. 

And  yet  Cerreros  and  other  guerrillas  are  mur- 
dering men  and  boys  in  the  fields  around  Sagua  as 
wantonly  and  as  calmly  as  a  gardener  cuts  down 
weeds.  The  stories  of  these  butcheries  were  told 
to  me  by  Englishmen  and  Americans  who  could 
look  from  their  verandas  over  miles  of  fields  that 
belonged  to  them,  but  who  could  not  venture  with 
safety  two  hundred  yards  from  their  doorsteps. 
They  were  virtually  prisoners  in  their  own  homes, 
and  every  spot  of  ground  within  sight  of  their  win- 
dows marked  where  one  of  their  laborers  had  been 
cut  down,  sometimes  when  he  was  going  to  the 
next  central  on  an  errand,  or  to  carry  the  mail,  and 
sometimes  when  he  was  digging  potatoes  or  cut- 
ting sugar  cane  within  sight  of  the  forts.  Passes 
and  orders  were  of  no  avail.  The  guerrillas  tore  up 
the  passes,  and  swore  later  that  the  men  were  sus- 
pects, and  were  at  the  moment  of  their  capture 
carrying  messages  to  the  insurgents.  The  stories 
these  planters  told  me  were  not  dragged  from  them 
to  furnish  copy  for  a  newspaper,  but  came  out  in 


The  Question  of  Atrocities      i  i  i 

the    course   ot   our   talk,   as   we   walked    over   the 
small  extent  which  the  forts  allowed  us. 

My  host  would  say,  pointing  to  one  of  the  pacifi- 
cos  huddled  in  a  corner  of  his  machine  shop:  "That 
man's  brother  was  killed  last  week  about  three  hun- 
dred yards  over  there  to  the  left  while  he  was  dig- 
ging in  the  field."  Or,  in  answer  to  a  question 
from  our  consul,  he  would  say:  "Oh,  that  boy 
who  used  to  take  care  of  your  horse — some  guer- 
rillas shot  him  a  month  ago."  After  you  hear 
stories  like  these  during  an  entire  day.  the  air  seems 
to  be  heavy  with  murder,  and  the  very  ground  on 
which  you  walk  smells  of  blood.  It  was  the  same 
in  the  town,  where  any  one  was  free  to  visit  the 
cartel,  and  view  the  murdered  bodies  of  the  pacifi- 
cos  hacked  and  beaten  and  stretched  out  as  a  warn- 
ing, or  for  public  approbation.  There  were  six  so 
exposed  while  I  was  in  Sagua.  In  Matanzas  they 
brought  the  bodies  to  the  Plaza  at  night  when  the 
band  was  playing,  and  the  guerrillas  marched 
around  the  open  place  with  the  bodies  of 
eighteen  Cubans  swinging  from  the  backs  of  ponies 
with  their  heads  hanging  down  and  bumping 
against  the  horses'  knees.  The  people  flocked  to 
the  sides  of  the  Plaza  to  applaud  this  ghastly  pro- 
cession, and  the  men  in  the  open  cafes  cheered  the 
guerrilla  chief  and  cried,  "Long  live  Spain!" 


1 1  2  Cuba   in    War  Time 

Speaking  dispassionately,  and  with  a  full  knowl- 
edge of  the  details  of  many  butcheries,  it  is  impos- 
sible for  me  to  think  of  the  Spanish  guerrillas  other- 
wise than  as  worse  than  savage  animals.  A  wild 
animal  kills  to  obtain  food,  and  not  merely  for  the 
joy  of  killing.  These  guerrillas  murder  and  then 
laugh  over  it.  The  cannibal,  who  has  been  supposed 
hitherto  to  be  the  lowest  grade  of  man,  is  really  of  a 
higher  caste  than  these  Spanish  murderers — men 
like  Colonel  Fondevila,  Cerreros,  and  Colonel 
Bonita — for  a  cannibal  kills  to  keep  himself  alive. 
These  men  kill  to  feed  their  vanity,  in  order  that 
they  may  pose  as  brave  soldiers,  and  that  their 
friends  may  give  them  banquets  in  hotel  parlors. 

If  what  I  say  seems  prejudiced  and  extravagant 
it  may  be  well  to  insert  this  translation  from  a  Span- 
ish paper,  El  Pais: 

"There  are  signs  of  civilization  among  us;  but  the 
truth  is  that  we  are  uncultured,  barbaric  and  cruel. 
Although  this  may  not  be  willingly  acknowledged, 
the  fact  is  that  we  are  committing  acts  of  savagery 
of  which  there  is  no  counterpart  in  any  other  Euro- 
pean country. 

"Let  us  not  say  a  word  of  the  atrocities  perpe- 
trated at  the  Castle  of  Montjuich;  of  the  iniquitous 
and  miserable  massacre  of  the  Novelda  republicans; 
of  the  shootings  which  occur  daily  in  Manila;  of  the 


u 


CO 


The   Question   of  Atrocities       I  i  5 

arbitrary  imprisonments  which  are  systematically 
made  here.  We  wish  now  to  say  something-  of  the 
respect  due  to  the  conquered,  of  generosity  that 
should  be  shown  to  prisoners  of  war,  for  these  are 
sentiments  which  exist  even  among  savage  people. 

"The  Cuban  exiles  who  disembark  at  Cadiz  are 
sent  on  foot  to  the  distant  castle  of  Figueras.  'The 
unfortunate  exiles,'  a  letter  from  Carpio  says, 
'passed  here  barefooted  and  bleeding,  almost  naked 
and  freezing.  At  every  town,  far  from  finding  rest 
for  their  fatigue,  they  are  received  with  all  sorts  of 
insults;  they  are  scoffed  and  provoked.  I  am  in- 
dignant at  this  total  lack  of  humanitarian  sentiment 
and  charity.  I  have  two  sons  who  are  fighting 
against  the  Cuban  insurgents;  but  this  does  not  pre- 
vent me  from  denouncing  those  who  ill-treat  their 
prisoners.  I  have  witnessed  such  outrages  upon 
the  unfortunate  exiles  that  I  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
that  nothing  like  it  has  ever  occurred  in  Africa.'  " 

I  do  not  wish  what  I  have  said  concerning  the 
Florida  correspondents  to  be  misunderstood  as  re- 
ferring to  those  who  are  writing,  and  have  written 
from  the  island  of  Cuba.  They  suffer  from  the 
"fakirs"  even  more  than  do  the  people  of  the  United 
States  who  read  the  stories  of  both,  and  who  con- 
found the  sensation-mongers  with  those  who  go  to 
find  the  truth  at  the  risk  of  their  lives.     For  these 


i  1 6  Cuba  in    War  Time 

latter  do  risk  their  lives,  daily  and  hourly,  when 
they  go  into  these  conflicts  looking  for  the  facts.  I 
have  not  been  in  any  conflict,  so  1  can  speak  of 
these  men  without  fear  of  being  misunderstood. 

They  are  taking  chances  that  no  war  correspon- 
dents ever  took  in  any  war  in  any  part  of  the  world. 
For  this  is  not  a  war — it  is  a  state  of  lawless  butch- 
ery, and  the  rights  of  correspondents,  of  soldiers 
and  of  non-combatants  are  not  recognized.  Archi- 
bald Forbes,  and  "Bull  Run"  Russell  and  Frederick 
Villiers  had  great  continental  armies  to  protect 
them;  these  men  work  alone  with  a  continental 
army  against  them.  They  risk  capture  at  sea  and 
death  by  the  guns  of  a  Spanish  cruiser,  and.  es- 
caping that,  they  face  when  they  reach  the  island 
the  greater  danger  of  capture  there  and  of  being 
cut  down  by  a  guerrilla  force  and  left  to  die  in  a 
road,  or  of  being  put  in  a  prison  and  left  to  die  of 
fever,  as  Covin  was  cut  down,  as  Delgardo  died 
in  prison,  as  Melton  is  lying  in  prison  now,  where 
he  will  continue  to  lie  until  we  have  a  Secretary  of 
State  who  recognizes  the  rights  of  the  correspon- 
dent as  a  non-combatant,  or  at  least  as  an  Ameri- 
can citizen. 

The  fate  of  these  three  American  correspondents 
has  not  deterred  others  from  crossing  the  lines,  and 
they  are  in  the  field  now,  lying  in  swamps  by  day 


The   Question   of  Atrocities       117 

and  creeping-  between  the  forts  by  night,  standing 
under  fire  by  the  side  of  Gomez  as  they  stood  beside 
Maceo,  going  without  food,  without  shelter,  with- 
out the  right  to  answer  the  attacks  of  the  Spanish 
troops,  climbing  the  mountains  and  crawling  across 
the  trochas,  creeping  to  some  friendly  hut  for  a  cup 
of  coffee  and  to  place  their  despatches  in  safe 
hands,  and  then  going  back  again  to  run  the 
gauntlet  of  Spanish  spies  and  of  flying  columns  and 
of  the  unspeakable  guerrillas. 

When  you  sit  comfortably  at  your  breakfast  in 
New  York,  with  a  policeman  at  the  corner,  and 
read  the  despatches  which  these  gentlemen  write  of 
Cuban  victories  and  their  interviews  with  self-im- 
portant Cuban  chiefs,  you  should  remember  what  it 
cost  them  to  supply  you  with-  that  addition  to  your 
morning's  budget  of  news.  Whether  the  result  is 
worth  the  risk,  or  whether  it  is  not  paying  too  great 
a  price,  the  greatest  price  of  all,  for  too  little,  is  not 
the  question.  The  reckless  bravery  and  the  un- 
selfishness of  the  correspondents  in  the  field  in 
Cuba  to-day  are  beyond  parallel. 

It  is  as  dangerous  to  seek  for  Gomez  as  Stanley 
found  it  to  seek  for  Livingston,  and  as  few  men 
return  from  the  insurgent  camps  as  from  the  Arctic 
regions. 

In  case  you  do  not  read  a  New  York  paper,  it  is 


1 1  8  Cuba  in   War  Time 

well  that  you  should  know  that  the  names  of  these 
correspondents  are  Grover  Flint,  Sylvester  Scovel 
and  George  Bronson  Rae.  I  repeat,  that  as  I  could 
not  reach  the  field,  I  can  write  thus  freely  of  those 
who  have  been  more  successful. 


The   Right  of  Search   of 
American  Vessels 


An   Officer  of  Spanish   Guerillas 


The  Right  of  Search  of 
American  Vessels 

On  the  boat  which  carried  me  from  Cuba  to  Key- 
West  were  three  young"  girls,  who  had  been  exiled 
for  giving  aid  to  the  insurgents.  The  brother  of 
one  of  them  is  in  command  of  the  Cuban  forces  in 
the  field  near  Havana.  More  than  once  his  sister 
had  joined  him  there,  and  had  seen  fighting  and 
carried  back  despatches  to  the  Junta  in  Havana. 
For  this  she  and  two  other  young  women,  who 
were  also  suspected,  were  ordered  to  leave  the 
island. 

I  happened  to  sit  next  to  this  young  lady  at  table 
on  the  steamer,  and  I  found  that  she  was  not  an 
Amazon  nor  a  Joan  of  Arc  nor  a  woman  of  the  peo- 
ple, with  a  machete  in  one  hand  and  a  Cuban  flag 
in  the  other.  She  was  a  well-bred,  well-educated 
young  person,  speaking  tl^ree  languages. 

This  is  what  the  Spaniards  did  to  these  girls: 

After  ordering  them  to  leave  the  island  on  a  cer- 
tain day  they  sent  detectives  to  the  houses  of  each  on 


122  Cuba  in   War  Time 

th*e  morning  of  that  day  and  had  them  undressed 
and  searched  by  a  female  detective  to  discover  if 
they  were  carrying  letters  to  the  Junta  at  Key  West 
or  Tampa.  They  were  seached  thoroughly,  even  to 
the  length  of  taking  off  their  shoes  and  stockings. 
Later,  when  the  young  ladies  stood  at  last  on  the 
deck  of  an  American  vessel,  with  the  American  flag 
hanging  from  the  stern,  the  Spanish  officers  fol- 
lowed them  there,  and  demanded  that  a  cabin 
should  be  furnished  them  to  which  the  girls  might 
be  taken,  and  they  were  then  again  undressed  and 
searched  by  this  woman  for  the  second  time. 

For  the  benefit  of  people  with  unruly  imagina- 
tions, of  whom  there  seem  to  be  a  larger  proportion 
in  this  country  than  I  had  supposed,  I  will  state 
again  that  the  search  of  these  women  was  con- 
ducted by  women  and  not  by  men,  as  I  was  re- 
ported to  have  said,  and  as  I  did  not  say  in  my 
original  report  of  the  incident. 

Spanish  officers,  with  red  crosses  for  bravery  on 
their  chests  and  gold  lace  on  their  cuffs,  strutted 
up  and  down  while  the  search  was  going  on,  and 
chancing  to  find  a  Cuban  suspect  among  the  pas- 
sengers, ordered  him  to  be  searched  also,  only 
they  did  not  give  him  the  privacy  of  a  cabin,  but 
searched  his  clothes  and  shoes  and  hat  on  the  main 
deck  of  this  American  vessel  before  the  other  pas- 


The  Right  of  Search  123 

sengers  and  myself  and  the  ship's  captain  and  his 
crew. 

In  order  to  leave  Havana,  it  is  first  necessary  to 
give  notice  of  your  wish  to  do  so  by  sending  your 
passport  to  the  Captain  General,  who  looks  up  your 
record,  and,  after  twenty-four  hours,  if  he  is  willing 
to  let  you  go,  vises  your  passport  and  so  signifies 
that  your  request  is  granted.  After  you  have  com- 
plied with  that  requirement  of  martial  law,  and  the 
Captain  General  has  agreed  to  let  you  depart,  and 
you  are  on  board  of  an  American  vessel,  the  Span- 
ish soldiers'  control  over  you  and  your  movements 
should  cease,  for  they  relinquish  all  their  rights 
when  they  give  you  back  your  passport. 

At  least  the  case  of  Barrundia  justifies  such  a 
supposition.  It  was  then  shown  that,  while  a  pas- 
senger or  a  member  of  a  crew  is  amenable  to  the 
"common  laws"  of  the  country  in  the  port  in  which 
the  vessel  lies,  he  is  not  to  be  disturbed  for  political 
offenses  against  her  government. 

When  the  officers  of  Guatemala  went  on  board  a 
vessel  of  the  Pacific  Mail  line  and  arrested  Barrun- 
dia, who  was  a  revolutionist,  and  then  shot  him  be- 
tween decks,  the  American  Minister,  who  had  per- 
mitted this  outrage,  was  immediately  recalled,  and 
the  letter  recalling  him,  which  was  written  by 
James  G.  Blaine,  clearly  and  emphatically  sets  forth 


124  Cuba  in   War  Time 

the  principle  that  a  political  offender  is  not  to  be 
molested  on  board  of  an  American  vessel,  whether 
she  is  in  the  passenger  trade  or  a  ship  of  war. 

Prof.  Joseph  H.  Beale,  Jr.,  the  professor  of  inter- 
national law  at  Harvard,  said  in  reference  to  the 
case  of  these  women  when  I  first  wrote  of  it: 

"So  long  as  a  state  of  war  has  not  been  recog- 
nized by  this  country,  the  Spanish  government  has 
not  the  right  to  stop  or  search  our  vessels  on  the 
high  seas  for  contraband  of  war  or  for  any  other 
purpose,  nor  would  it  have  the  right  to  subject 
American  citizens  or  an  American  vessel  in  Cuban 
waters  to  treatment  which  would  not  be  legal  in  the 
case  of  Spanish  citizens  or  vessels. 

"But  the  Spanish  government  has  the  right  in 
Cuba  to  execute  upon  American  citizens  or  vessels 
any  laws  prevailing  there,  in  the  same  way  as  they 
would  execute  them  upon  the  Spaniards,  unless 
they  are  prevented  by  the  provisions  of  some  treaty 
with  the  United  States.  The  fact  that  the  vessel  in 
the  harbor  of  Havana  was  flying  a  neutral  flag 
could  not  protect  it  irom  tlie  execution  of  Spanish 
law. 

"However  unwise  or  inhuman  the  action  of  the 
Spanish  authorities  may  have  been  in  searching  the 
woir.cn  on  board  the  Olivette,  they  appear  to  have 
been  within  their  legal  rights." 


The  Right  of  Search  i  27 

The  Spanish  Minister  at  Washington  has  also 
declared  that  his  government  has  the  right  of  search 
in  the  harbor  of  Havana.  Hence  in  the  face  of  two 
snch  authorities  the  question  raised  is  probably 
answered  from  a  legal  point  of  view.  But  if  that  is 
the  law,  it  would  seem  well  to  alter  it,  for  it  gives 
the  Spanish  authorities  absolute  control  over  the 
persons  and  property  of  Americans  on  American 
vessels,  and  that  privilege  in  the  hands  of  persons 
as  unscrupulous  and  as  insolent  as  are  the  Spanish 
detectives,  is  a  dangerous  one.  So  dangerous  a 
privilege,  indeed,  that  there  is  no  reason  nor  ex- 
cuse for  not  keeping  an  American  ship  of  war  in 
the  harbor  of  Havana. 

For  suppose  that  letters  and  despatches  had  been 
found  on  the  persons  of  these  young  ladies,  and 
they  had  been  put  on  shore  and  lodged  in  prison; 
or  suppose  the  whole  ship  and  every  one  on  board 
had  been  searched,  as  the  captain  of  the 
Olivette  said  the  Spanish  officers  told  him  they 
might  decide  to  do,  and  letters  had  been  found  on 
the  Americans,  and  they  had  been  ordered  over  the 
side  and  put  into  prison — would  that  have  been  an 
act  derogatory  to  the  dignity  of  the  United  States? 
Or  are  we  to  understand  that  an  American  citizen 
or  a  citizen  of  any  country,  after  he  has  asked  and 
obtained  permission  to  leave  Cuba  and  is  on  board 


128  Cuba  in   War  Time 

of  an  American  vessel,  is  no  more  safe  there  than 
he  would  be  in  the  insurgent  camp? 

The  latter  supposition  would  seem  to  he  correct, 
and  the  matter  to  depend  on  the  captain  of  the  ves- 
sel and  her  owners,  from  whom  he  receives  his  in- 
structions, and  not  to  be  one  in  which  the  United 
States  government  is  in  any  way  concerned.  I  do 
not  believe  the  captain  of  a  British  passenger 
steamer  would  have  allowed  one  of  his  passengers 
to  be  searched  on  the  main  deck  of  his  vessel,  as  I 
saw  this  Cuban  searched;  nor  even  the  captain  of 
a  British  tramp  steamer  nor  of  a  coal  barge. 

The  chief  engineer  of  the  Olivette  declared  to  me 
that  in  his  opinion,  "it  served  them  just  right,"  and 
the  captain  put  a  cabin  at  the  disposal  of  the  Span- 
ish spies  with  eager  humility.  And  when  one  of 
the  detectives  showed  some  disinclination  to  give 
back  my  passport,  and  I  said  I  would  keep  him  on 
board  until  he  did  it,  the  captain  said:  "Yes,  you 
will,  will  you?  I  would  like  to  see  you  try  it,"  sug- 
gesting that  he  was  master  of  his  own  ship  and  of 
my  actions.  But  he  was  not.  There  is  not  an 
unwashed,  garlicky,  bediamonded  Spanish  spy  in 
Cuba  who  has  not  more  authority  on  board  the 
Olivette  than  her  American  captain  and  his  subser- 
vient crew. 

Only  a  year  ago  half  of  this  country  was  clamor- 


The   Right  of  Search  I  29 

ing  for  a  war  with  the  greatest  power  it  could  have 
selected  for  that  purpose.  Yet  Great  Britain 
would  have  been  the  first  to  protect  her  citi- 
zens and  their  property  and  their  self-respect  if 
they  had  been  abused  as  the  self-respect  and  prop- 
erty and  freedom  of  Americans  have  been  abused 
by  this  fourth-rate  power,  and  are  being  abused 
to-day. 

Before  I  went  to  Cuba  I  was  as  much  opposed  to 
our  interfering  there  as  any  other  person  equally 
ignorant  concerning  the  situation  could  be,  but 
since  I  have  seen  for  myself  I  feel  ashamed  that  we 
should  have  stood  so  long  idle.  We  have  been  too 
considerate,  too  fearful  that  as  a  younger  nation,  we 
should  appear  to  disregard  the  laws  laid  down  by 
older  nations.  We  have  tolerated  what  no  Euro- 
pean power  would  have  tolerated;  we  have  been 
patient  with  men  who  have  put  back  the  hand  oi 
time  for  centuries,  who  lie  to  our  representatives 
daily,  wdio  butcher  innocent  people,  who  gamble 
with  the  lives  of  their  own  soldiers  in  order  to  gain 
a  few  more  stars  and  an  extra  stripe,  who  send 
American  property  to  the  air  in  flames  and  murder 
American  prisoners. 

The  British  lately  sent  an  expedition  of  eight 
hundred  men  to  the  west  coast  of  Africa  to  punish 
a  savage  king  who  butchers  people  because  it  does 


130  Cuba  in   War  Time 

not  rain.  Why  should  we  tolerate  Spanish  savages 
merely  because  they  call  themselves  "the  most 
Catholic,"  but  who  in  reality  are  no  better  than 
this  naked  negro?  What  difference  is  there  be- 
tween the  King  of  Benin  who  crucifies  a  woman 
because  he  wants  rain  and  General  Weyler  who 
outrages  a  woman  for  his  own  pleasure  and  throws 
her  to  his  bodyguard  of  blacks,  even  if  the  woman 
has  the  misfortune  to  live  after  it — and  to  still  live 
in  Sagua  la  Grande  to-day? 

If  the  English  were  right — and  they  were  right — 
in  punishing  the  King  of  Benin  for  murdering  his 
subjects  to  propitiate  his  idols,  we  are  right  to  pun- 
ish these  revivers  of  the  Inquisition  for  starving 
women  and  children  to  propitiate  an  Austrian  arch- 
duchess. 

It  is  difficult  to  know  what  the  American  people 
do  want.  They  do  not  want  peace,  apparently,  for 
their  senators,  some  through  an  ignorant  hatred  of 
England  and  others  through  a  personal  dislike  of 
the  President,  emasculated  the  arbitration  treaty; 
and  they  do  not  want  war,  for,  as  some  one  has 
written,  if  we  did  not  go  to  war  with  Spain  when 
she  murdered  the  crew  of  the  Virginius,  we  never 
will. 

But  if  the  executive  and  the  legislators  wish  to 
assure  themselves,  like  "Fighting  Bob  Acres,"  that 


u 


The  Right  of  Search  133 

they  have  some  right  on  their  side,  they  need  not 
turn  back  to  the  Virginius  incident.  There  are 
reasons  enough  to-day  to  justify  their  action,  if  it  is 
to  be  their  intellects  and  not  their  feelings  that  must 
move  them  to  act.  American  property  has  been 
destroyed  by  Spanish  troops  to  the  amount  of  many 
millions,  and  no  answer  made  to  demands  of  the 
State  Department  for  an  explanation.  American 
citizens  have  been  imprisoned  and  shot — some 
without  a  trial,  some  in  front  of  their  own  domi- 
ciles, and  American  vessels  are  turned  over  to  the 
uses  of  the  Spanish  secret  police.  These  would 
seem  to  be  sufficient  reasons  for  interfering. 

But  why  should  we  not  go  a  step  farther  and  a 
step  higher,  and  interfere  in  the  name  of  human- 
ity? Not  because  we  are  Americans,  but  because  we 
are  human  beings,  and  because,  within  eighty  miles 
of  our  coast,  Spanish  officials  are  killing  men  and 
women  as  wantonly  as  though  they  were  field 
mice,  not  in  battle,  but  in  cold  blood — cutting  them 
down  in  the  open  roads,  at  the  wells  to  which  they 
have  gone  for  water,  or  on  their  farms,  where  they 
have  stolen  away  to  dig  up  a  few  potatoes,  hav- 
ing first  run  the  gauntlets  of  the  forts  and  risked 
their  lives  to  obtain  them. 

This  is  not  an  imaginary  state  of  affairs,  nor  are 
these  supposititious  cases.  I  am  writing  only  of  the 


i  34  Cuba  in  War  Time 

things  T  have  heard  from  eye  witnesses  and  of  some 
of  the  things  that  I  have  seen. 

President  Cleveland  declared  in  his  message  to 
Congress:  "When  the  inability  of  Spain  to  deal 
successfully  with  the  insurgents  has  become  mani- 
fest, and  it  is  demonstrated  that  her  sovereignty  is 
extinct  in  Cuba  for  all  purposes  of  its  rightful  exis- 
tence, and  when  a  hopeless  struggle  for  its  re-estab- 
lishment has  degenerated  into  a  strife  which  is 
nothing  more  than  the  useless  sacrifice  of  human 
life  and  the  utter  destruction  of  the  very  subject- 
matter  of  the  conflict,  a  situation  will  be  presented 
in  which  our  obligations  to  the  sovereignty  of 
Spain  will  be  superseded  by  higher  obligations, 
which  we  can  hardly  hesitate  to  recognize  and  dis- 
charge!" 

These  conditions  are  now  manifest.  A  hopeless 
struggle  for  sovereignty  has  degenerated  into  a 
strife  which  means  not  the  useless,  but  the  wanton 
sacrifice  of  human  life,  and  the  utter  destruction  of 
the  subject-matter  of  the  conflict. 

What  further  manifestations  are  needed?  Is  it  that 
the  American  people  doubt  the  sources  from  which 
their  information  comes?  They  are  the  consuls 
all  over  the  island  of  Cuba.  For  what  voice  cry- 
ing in  the  wilderness  are  they  still  waiting?  What 
will  convince  them  that  the  time  has  come? 


The  Right  of  Search  135 

If  the  United  States  is  to  interfere  in  this  mat- 
ter she  should  do  so  at  once,  but  she  should  only 
do  so  after  she  has  informed  herself  thoroughly 
concerning'  it.  She  should  not  act  on  the  reports 
of  the  hotel  piazza  correspondents,  but  send  men 
to  Cuba  on  whose  judgment  and  common  sense  she 
can  rely.  General  Fitzhugh  Lee  is  one  of  these 
men,  and  there  is  no  better  informed  American  on 
Cuban  matters  than  he,  nor  one  who  sees  more 
clearly  the  course  which  our  government  should 
pursue.  Through  the  consuls  all  over  the  island, 
he  is  in  touch  with  every  part  of  it,  and  in  daily 
touch;  but  incidents  which  are  frightfully  true  there 
seem  exaggerated  and  overdrawn  when  a  typewrit- 
ten description  of  them  reaches  the  calm  corridors 
of  the  State  Department. 

More  men  like  Lee  should  go  to  Cuba  to  inform 
themselves,  not  men  who  will  stop  in  Havana  and 
pick  up  the  gossip  of  the  Hotel  Ingleterra,  but  who 
will  go  out  into  the  cities  and  sugar  plantations  and 
talk  to  the  consuls  and  merchants  and  planters, 
both  Spanish  and  American;  who  can  see  for  them- 
selves the  houses  burning  and  the  smoke  arising 
from  every  point  of  the  landscape ;  who  can  see  the 
bodies  of  "pacificos"  brought  into  the  cities,  and 
who  can  sit  on  a  porch  of  an  American  planter's 
house  and  hear  him  tell  in  a  whisper  how  his  sugar 


*3^  Cuba  in   War  Time 

cane  was  set  on  fire  by  the  same  Spanish  soldiers 
who  surround  the  house,  and  who  are  supposed  to 
guard  his  property,  but  who,  in  reality,  are  there 
to  keep  a  watch  on  him. 

He  should  hear  little  children,  born  of  American 
parents,  come  into  the  consulate  and  ask  for  a  piece 
of  bread.  He  should  see  the  children  and  the 
women  herded  in  the  towns  or  walking  the  streets 
in  long  processions,  with  the  Mayor  at  their  head, 
begging  his  fellow  Spaniards  to  give  them  food,  the 
children  covered  with  the  red  blotches  of  small-pox 
and  the  women  gaunt  with  yellow  fever.  He 
should  see  hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars'  worth 
of  machinery  standing  idle,  covered  with  rust  and 
dirt,  or  lying  twisted  and  broken  under  fallen  walls. 
He  will  learn  that  while  one  hundred  and  fifty-six 
vessels  came  into  the  port  of  Matanzas  in  1894, 
only  eighty-eight  came  in  1895,  and  that  but  six- 
teen touched  there  in  1896,  and  that  while  the 
export  of  sugar  from  that  port  to  the  United 
States  in  1894  amounted  to  eleven  millions  of  dol- 
lars, in  1895  it  sank  to  eight  millions  of  dollars,  and 
in  1896  it  did  not  reach  one  million.  I  copied  these 
figures  one  morning  from  the  consular  books,  and 
that  loss  of  ten  millions  of  dollars  in  two  vears  in 
one  little  port  is  but  a  sample  of  the  facts  that  show 
what  chaos  this  war  is  working. 


Spanish   Cavalryman  on   a   Texas   Broncho 


The   Right  of  Search  139 

In  three  weeks  any  member  of  the  Senate  or  of 
Congress  who  wishes  to  inform  himself  on  this 
reign  of  terror  in  Cuba  can  travel  from  one  end  of 
this  island  to  the  other  and  return  competent  to 
speak  with  absolute  authority.  No  man,  no  mat- 
ter what  his  prejudices  may  be,  can  make  this  jour- 
ney and  not  go  home  convinced  that  it  is  his  duty 
to  try  to  stop  this  cruel  waste  of  life  and  this  wan- 
ton destruction  of  a  beautiful  country. 

A  reign  of  terror  sounds  hysterical,  but  it  is  an 
exact  and  truthful  descriptive  phrase  of  the  condi- 
tion in  Cuba.  Insurgentsand  Spaniards  alike  are  lay- 
ing waste  the  land,  and  neither  side  shows  any  sign 
of  giving  up  the  struggle.  But  while  the  men  are 
in  the  field  fighting  after  their  fashion,  for  the  inde- 
pendence of  the  island,  the  old  men  and  the  infirm 
and  the  women  and  children,  who  cannot  help  the 
cause  or  themselves,  and  who  are  destitute  and 
starving  and  dying,  have  their  eyes  turned  towTard 
the  great  republic  that  lies  only  eighty  miles  away, 
and  they  are  holding  out  their  hands  and  asking 
"How  long,  O,  Lord,  how  long?" 

Or  if  the  members  of  the  Senate  and  of  Congress 
can  not  visit  Cuba,  why  will  they  not  listen  to  those 
who  have  been  there?  Of  three  men  who  traveled 
over  the  island,  seeking  the  facts  concerning  it,  two 
correspondents  and  an  interpreter,  two  of  the  three 


14-0  Cuba   in   War  Time 

were  for  a  time  in  Spanish  hospitals,  covered  with 
small-pox.  Of  the  three,  although  we  were  to- 
gether until  they  were  taken  ill,  I  was  the  only  one 
who  escaped  contagion. 

If  these  other  men  should  die,  they  die  because 
they  tried  to  find  out  the  truth.  Is  it  likely,  hav- 
ing risked  such  a  price  for  it  that  they  would  lie 
about  what  they  have  seen? 

They  could  have  invented  stories  of  famine  and 
disease  in  Havana.  They  need  not  have  looked  for 
the  facts  where  they  were  to  be  found,  in  the  sea- 
ports and  villages  and  fever  camps.  Why  not  lis- 
ten to  these  men  or  to  Stephen  Bonsai,  of  the  New 
York  Herald,  in  whom  the  late  President  showed 
his  confidence  by  appointing  him  to  two  diplomat  it- 
missions  ? 

Why  not  listen  to  C.  E.  Akers,  of  the  London 
Times,  and  Harper's  Weekly,  who  has  held  two 
commissions  from  the  Queen?  Why  disregard  a 
dozen  other  correspondents  who  are  seeking  the 
truth,  and  who  urge  in  every  letter  which  they 
write  that  their  country  should  stop  this  destruc- 
tion of  a  beautiful  land  and  this  butchery  of  harm- 
less non-combatants? 

The  matter  lies  at  the  door  of  Congress.  Each 
day's  delay  means  the  death  of  hundreds  of 
people,   every  hour  sees  fresh   blood  spilled,    and 


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If 


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A 


The  Right  of  Search  143 

more  houses  and  more  acres  of  crops  sinking  into 
ashes.  A  month's  delay  means  the  loss  to  this 
world  of  thousands  of  lives,  the  unchecked  growth 
of  terrible  diseases,  and  the  spreading  devastation 
of  a  great  plague. 

It  would  be  an  insult  to  urge  political  reasons,  or 
the  sure  approval  of  the  American  people  which 
the  act  of  interference  would  bring,  or  any  other 
unworthy  motive.  Xo  European  power  dare  inter- 
fere, and  it  lies  with  the  United  States  and  with  her 
people  to  give  the  signal.  If  it  is  given  now  it 
will  save  thousands  of  innocent  lives;  if  it  is  delayed 
just  that  many  people  will  perish. 

THE  END. 


GOING  TO  WAR 


IN 

GREECE 

By 

FREDERICK 

PALMER 


"If  one  really  wants  a  truthful  and  at  the 
same  time  intensely  interesting  picture  of  the 
late  war  between  Greece  and  Turkey  he 
need  not  go  beyond  this  volume  of  Mr. 
Palmer's. " — Boston  Journal. 

"  Frederick  Palmer  has  performed  an  im- 
portant achievement  in  making  an  interesting 
book  of  his  'Going  to  War  in  Greece.'" 
—  Chicago   Times- Herald. 

"  The  droll  turns  that  the  author  gives  to 
his  adventures  are  incisive  and  informing  ;  a 
fresh  glimpse  of  the  month's  fight  as  seen 
from  very  close  range." — Boston  Herat  J. 
"  A  graphic  picture  of  the  recent  hostilities.'  — Philadelphia  Press. 
"A  vivid  impression  of  the  Turko-Grecian  conflict."—  Detroit  Tribune. 
"  Mr.  Palmer's   opportunities  were  exceptional.     That  he  made  good 
use  of  them  is  evidenced  by  the  interesting  character  of  the  book. ' —Brook- 
lyn Eagle. 

"  It  didn't  turn  out  to  be  much  of  a  war,  but  Mr.  Palmer's  report  of  it 
turns  out  to  be  a  capital  book." — Buffalo  Express. 

"  Interesting  and  readable  journalism  in  book  covers  is  '  Going  to  War 
in  Greece,'  by  Frederick  Palmer." — The  Outlook. 

i2mo,  deckle  edge  paper,  attractively  bound.      Price  $1.25. 

R.  H.  Russell  :  New  York 


Spanish 
Flags 


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